In the early 17th century it served briefly as an embassy chapel for the Spanish Ambassador, and a haven for English Catholics. The chapel was purchased by the Catholic Church in 1874 and opened in 1878 and is one of the oldest churches in England to be in current use by the Catholic Church.
St Etheldreda's was built some time between 1250 and 1290 as the town chapel for the Bishops of Ely.[2] It was part of Ely Palace or Ely House, their London residence.
In 1576 a lease on a portion of the house and lands surrounding the chapel was granted by Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, to Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourite of Elizabeth I. The rent was £10, ten loads of hay and one red rose per year, a small enough sum to give rise to suspicion that Elizabeth had put pressure on the bishop. Hatton borrowed extensively from the crown to pay for refurbishment and upkeep of the property. During his tenancy, the crypt was used as a tavern.
In 1620, the upper church was granted to Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, to use as a private chapel, and was considered to be on Spanish soil. Catholic worship, still illegal in England, was allowed in the church. Two years later, during a diplomatic dispute between England and Spain, Gondomar was recalled to Spain and use of the chapel was not given to his successor.
Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely from 1638 (and uncle of Christopher Wren), worshipped at St Etheldreda's chapel before his imprisonment in 1641.
In 1642, the palace and church was requisitioned by Parliament for use as a prison and hospital during the English Civil War. During Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth (1649–1660) most of the palace was demolished and the gardens were destroyed.
18th century
Engraving from a 1772 drawing of Ely House (including St Etheldreda's chapel)
In 1772, the Crown Lands in Fenchurch Street, London Act 1772 allowed the Bishops of Ely to sell the property to the Crown. The site, including the chapel, was sold on to Charles Cole, a surveyor and architect. He demolished all the buildings on the site apart from the chapel and built Ely Place. The chapel was extensively refurbished in the Georgian style before it re-opened in 1786.
19th century
"We heard of the proposed sale of Ely Chapel, and sent an agent to bid. We paid £5,400, which was less than the value of the freehold ground on which it stands. The day after we had made the purchase, the clergyman of the Welsh congregation called on me to offer a considerable advance on the sum we had paid. 'Well, sir.' he said when I declined to sell, 'I am sorry we have lost the old place, but I am glad it has passed into your hands, for you will appreciate its beauty, and, I have no doubt, restore it in a way we should never do.'"
In 1836, Ely Chapel was reopened by the Reverend Alexander D'Arblay (son of Fanny Burney) as a place of Anglican worship but he died the following year. In 1843, the church was leased by Welsh Anglicans with services celebrated in the Welsh language.[3] The chapel was put up for auction in 1874 and purchased for £5,400 by the Catholic convert Father William Lockhart of the Rosminian order.
The restoration was completed in 1878 and a Catholic Mass was celebrated in St Ethelreda's for the first time in over 200 years. The upper church was reopened in 1879 on the Feast of Saint Etheldreda (23 June).
For many years, St Etheldreda's church was the oldest Catholic church building in England, but since 1971 it has been surpassed by the 12th-century church of Ss Leonard & Mary in Malton, North Yorkshire.
20th century
The church as viewed towards the western stained glass window and entrance
In May 1941, during the Blitz, the church was hit by a bomb that tore a hole in the roof and destroyed the Victorian stained glass windows. It took seven years to repair the structural damage.
In 2011, the Catholic Church proposed that St Anne's Church, Laxton Place, be used as the principal church of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The journalist Damian Thompson, a prominent supporter of the ordinariate, called for St Etheldreda's to be used by the ordinariate, asserting that the church suffered a decline, both liturgically and as a parish community, in the early years of the 21st century.[4]
Father Kit Cunningham, for some 30 years the rector[5] of St Etheldreda's, was awarded the MBE in 1998.[6] Cunningham returned the MBE before his death in 2010. It was subsequently revealed in June 2011 that Cunningham had sexually abused young boys at a school in Tanzania.[7]
