The congregation of a 120-year-old church in Charlton could lose their home next month after their landlords threatened them with eviction.
Our Lady of Grace has been a local landmark since it was opened in 1906 by a Catholic group that had been founded in France 60 years earlier, the Augustinians of the Assumption. Generations of locals have worshipped at the church since then as housing was built around it.
While the Assumptionists withdrew from Charlton in 1989, the group continued to own the church and surrounding land. Locals fear that the Assumptionists want to sell the site for development.
The land includes the presbytery next door, Highcombe House, which was once the home of Sir William Barlow, the civil engineer who designed St Pancras station. The Grade II-listed building is the last of the old manor houses that once faced fields along Charlton Road.
Our Lady of Grace’s congregation had hoped the Assumptionists would hand over the church, which needs significant repair work, to the parish, and there had been discussions between the Archdiocese of Southwark and the group.
But in a letter given to the congregation last weekend, the archdiocese said it had been told by the Assumptionists’ lawyers that the parish had to leave the presbytery and church hall by this Sunday, and had been given until June 30 to stop using the church.
Included in the Assumptionists’ land is the former home of Our Lady of Grace primary school, which moved to a new site in 2017. The old school has been occupied by property guardians ever since, with its future remaining a mystery. The current school is not affected by the dispute.
The letter, from Canon Victor Darlington, the area’s episcopal vicar, said there had been long-running discussions about the future of the buildings, and said the archdiocese would “forever remain grateful” to the Assumptionists for their “dedicated missionary work” founding the parish. But the news “obviously came as a surprise, as we had been trying to work with the Assumptionists to find a solution that works for all, especially Charlton parishioners”.
“As I am sure you will understand, this timeline is impractical and we have made this clear to the Assumptionists and their lawyers,” he said.
Una Coyne, a member of the congregation whose parents and grandparents moved to Charlton from Ireland in 1935, told The Greenwich Wire: “My grandparents were buried from there. My parents married there. My parents were buried from there. I almost feel like my parents are being taken away from me again. And I’m not going to be the only one.
“I was at Saturday night Mass and I broke down. I cried all day Sunday. On Monday I got angry. And now I’m really angry.”
Coyne, whose father helped obtain the blue plaque for Barlow on the front of Highcombe House, is a keen local historian and had been working on an archive of the church. “But there’s no point in doing that now,” she said.
The former deputy headteacher at Our Lady of Grace primary school said she hoped to write to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and the leading Catholic in England and Wales, to ask him to intervene. She said that the nearby St John’s CofE church, in Blackheath, had offered its support and help.
The dispute comes as the Catholic Church elected a new pope, Leo XIV, after the death of Pope Francis last month. Cardinal Nichols was in the conclave choosing the new pontiff while the congregation was working out how to deal with the news.
The Augustinians of the Assumptionists were founded by Father Emmanuel d’Alzon as a male-only congregation in Nîmes, in the south of France, in 1845. A female congregation, the Oblates of the Assumption, followed 20 years later.
Nuns from the Oblate moved into the house, then called High Combe, in 1903 after they had been expelled from Bordeaux by the French government. Within a few weeks the Assumptionists had built up a congregation of over 100 and the priests followed. A French architect, Eugéne-Jacques Gervais, designed Our Lady of Grace church for them.
Over the years the Assumptionists spread out across Charlton, including setting up a convent in nearby Victoria Way in the 1920s.
After the Second World War they began to retreat from the area. The nuns moved to Bethnal Green in 1972 – with their old convent school later sold for housing – while the priests left in 1989, leaving local clergy to take over.
The Assumptionists are still present in Bethnal Green, east London, and they control one other parish, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
Our Lady of Grace is the only Catholic church in Charlton, with the nearest alternatives being St Mary’s Blackheath and St Joseph’s Shooters Hill.
A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Southwark told The Greenwich Wire: “Our Lady of Grace – Charlton is a much-loved parish, which has been a part of our Catholic community for 120 years. We were deeply disappointed to receive a letter from the Augustinians of the Assumption (Assumptionists) instructing us to stop using the church and parish grounds, which they own, by June 30.
“This is both impractical and unreasonable. There are clear processes in Catholic canon law and civil law which must be followed. That is why we have written to them making our disappointment clear and urging them for more time, so these processes can be followed fully.
“Our priority is to do what is best for our worshippers in Charlton both now, and in the future, and we will keep them updated as we continue to work with the Assumptionists and their lawyers.”
The Assumptionists did not respond to a request for comment.
Update, May 15 – After publication, the Assumptionists told us: “It is desperately sad that the buildings in Charlton have been left in such a state of disrepair as to endanger their public use, and that they have not been maintained properly by their current occupants.
“As custodians, we have made every effort to find a solution with the Diocese that would allow the continued use of the parish church. Sadly, having tried to ensure the Diocese uphold their obligations, we have been left with no choice but to end our licence so that these buildings can be repaired.”
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