Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, also known as Farm Street Church, is a Roman Catholic parish church run by the Society of Jesus in Mayfair, central London. Its main entrance is in Farm Street, though it can also be accessed from the adjacent Mount Street Gardens. Sir Simon Jenkins, in his book England's Thousand Best Churches, describes the church as "Gothic Revival at its most sumptuous".HistoryFoundationIn the 1840s, when the Jesuits first began looking for a location for their London church, they found the site in a quiet back street. They found it in what was in fact the mews in a back street. The name 'Farm Street' derives from 'Hay Hill Farm' which, in the eighteenth century, extended from Hill Street eastward beyond Berkeley Square. In 1843 Pope Gregory XVI received a petition from English Catholics for permission to erect a Jesuit Church in London and plans were accepted.ConstructionThe original intention of the Superior of the English Jesuits, Fr Randal Lythgoe, was for the church to have a capacity for 900 people. When this was found too expensive the church was built for a capacity of 475. The cost was £5,800 which came from multiple private benefactors.In 1844 the foundation stone was laid by Fr Lythgoe. Because of the limited size of the plot, the church was orientated north-south. The architect was Joseph John Scoles, who also designed the Church of St Francis Xavier in Liverpool, St Ignatius Church in Preston, and was father of Ignatius Scoles SJ, another architect, who designed St Wilfrid's Church also in Preston. Five years later on 31 July 1849, the feast of the Jesuit founder St Ignatius, the church was officially opened.