Patrick Comerford
During my most recent day out in London, I visited a number of places associated with the Comerford family in the past, sought out the sites of some of the earliest coffee shops in London, and visited a number of churches, including Saint Mary Woolnoth, Saint Michael’s, Cornhill, the sculptures in the grounds of Saint Pancras, Euston Road, Lumen Church on Tavistock Place, and Holy Cross Church, Cromer Street.
Holy Cross Church is in the St Pancras area of the London Borough of Camden and has served the people of King’s Cross since 1888. It is now in an area of regeneration, but its mission remains the same, both as a church designed for beautiful and formal worship and as a church that seeks to serve others, particularly people living with the ravages of life.
Holy Cross Church owes its name to the killing of a naval officer on the island of Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands in 1875. Captain James Graham Goodenough (1830-1875), commander of HMS Pearl, was visiting the island but the islanders distrusted white visitors who trafficked young men to work on Australian plantations. The Pearl’s visit was friendly – the Royal Navy was trying to end the slave trade. But during a fracas with a landing party, the captain was hit by a poisoned arrow and was killed.
The Revd the Hon Algernon Stanley (1843-1928) was the first vicar of the new parish of Holy Cross, Saint Pancras, 1876-1879. He was a close friend of Goodenough, and when he was appointed he decided to name the planned church Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) in memory of his friend. The bell from Goodenough’s ship still hangs in the church.
The King’s Cross area was poor and ‘slum priests’ like Stanley who had been influenced by the Catholic revival in the Church of England were keen to work in the new slum parishes. The new parish was needed because London was expanding. The church began as a district chapelry in 1876.
Before the church was ever built, Stanley became a Roman Catholic in 1879, and was the Vatican correspondent of The Times and the Daily Telegraph, an Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and the titular Bishop of Emmaus. He was a nephew of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881), Dean of Westminster, and a brother of Henry Edward John Stanley (1827-1903), 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley, who converted to Islam in 1862, adopted the name Abdul Rahman, and became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords when he inherited the family titles in 1869. The Stanley brothers were also uncles of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Holy Cross Church was built after Stanley resigned. The church was designed by the architect Joseph Peacock (1821-1893), was built in 1887-1888, and was consecrated in 1888, when Holy Cross became a parish. Peacock was also the architect of Saint Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, Kensington, where TS Eliot was a churchwarden for 25 years.
The architectural writer Ian Nairn says: ‘The outside is cheap and shrugged off, there are a hundred like it in London’s suburbs. Inside it is as honest and selfless as King’s Cross Station … nothing unnecessary and nothing put on for form’s sake.’
The braced king post roof is one of the ‘great glories’ of the interior, according to Historic England’s listing.
The nave is exceptionally broad for its length and the aisles very wide. The elevated choir and sanctuary is enclosed by a wood screen that may be the work of Sir Charles Nicholson (1867-1949), who worked at Holy Cross around 1913. The moveable benches are late Victorian.
A small stained glass window on the south wall depicting Christ the Good Shepherd is by Martin Travers (1886-1948), a church artist in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. The lamp in the window copies the lamp in Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the World’.
The Walsingham Chapel at the back of the church is a reminder of Father Alfred Hope Patten who was inspired to restore the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham while he was a curate at Holy Cross from 1913-1915.
The inlaid marble Stations of the Cross are identical to those in the Chapel of the Hospital of Saint John and Saint Elizabeth in Saint John’s Wood. The painting of Saint Mary Magdalene by Reginald Gray is in the small chapel dedicated to Saint Peter.
Holy Cross Church was built to serve a densely populated area and became a focal point for Anglo-Catholic liturgy and community outreach during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
The Revd Albert Moore, who was appointed vicar in 1888, the year the church was consecrated, is recorded in Charles Booth’s famous poverty maps and notebooks. In an interview with Booth’s researchers in 1898, he provided detailed insights into the social conditions, missionary work, and religious life of his parish.
Moore was succeeded by the Revd John Roffey, who was appointed the priest-in-charge in 1907. The Revd Francis Edwin Baverstock, was the Vicar from 1909 to 1915, and his curates included Father Alfred Hope Patten who later founded the shrine at Walsingham. Later vicars included the Revd Leslie Douglas Rutherford, appointed in 1915, and the Revd Francis Robert Langford-James, who was appointed in 1922 and who was a son of Francis Lloyd Langford-James of Tullaha, Co Cork.
An early 20th century curate was Father Gerard Olivier, father of the actor Laurence Olivier, and the comedian and actor Kenneth Williams attended Sunday School there in the 1930s.
The Revd Ralph Huie Le Messurier (1898-1948), a decorated veteran of World War I, became the vicar of Holy Cross in 1933. Two years later, Holy Cross was merged in 1935 with the parish of Saint Jude, Gray’s Inn Road, which was demolished in 1936. He courageously remained in the parish to continue operating the church’s night shelter for people seeking safety from the Blitz. But he was forced to resign because of his pacifist views during World War II, and was even physically assaulted by members of his congregation. His unpublished autobiography was entitled By Grace A Pacifist.
Father Napier Pitfield Sturt, vicar from 1945 to 1970, had chosen Saint Francis of Assisi as his patron, and his ministry in poor parishes bears out his commitment to working with the poor and the marginalised. Saint Peter’s, Regent Square, was damaged in the Blitz, the church was demolished in 1954, and the parish was merged with Holy Cross that year.
As a result of industrial decline in the second half of the 20th century, by the 1980s the area around King’s Cross Station, including Cromer Street, had become notorious for prostitution and drug abuse. The English Collective of Prostitutes staged a 12-day sit-in at Holy Cross in November 1982 as a protest against police harassment, attracting national media coverage. Father Trevor Richardson – ‘Trev the Rev’– said that the sit-in could continue so long as it did not interfere with services. He also commented that too much attention was being paid to the women occupying the church and not enough to the evils of society that had given rise to their sit-in.
The Crypt Centre was set up in 1988 to work for the homeless, and the development of the crypt in 2021 gives local groups a new place to meet.
Cromer Street is within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. Since 2019, Holy Cross has been closely involved with the Bloomsbury Festival. The church is a performance venue in the festival each year, a rehearsal and performance space and a music venue, including dementia-friendly and family-friendly concerts on Saturday afternoons.
London’s South Sudanese community holds its Independence Day service and celebration in the church.
Holy Cross has close links with Goodenough College, a postgraduate residential college for overseas students found by Captain Goodenough’s family, and the parish priest has traditionally the chaplain. The church works closely with nearby Argyle Primary School, the King’s Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood Association and other community groups, and a local charity uses the crypt for English classes for asylum seekers.
The church was designated a Grade II listed building on 14 May 1974, but the church is on the English Heritage list of immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric. A settlement of the foundations at the north-east corner of the church has caused structural cracking to the vestry and parts of the walls of the church. The church is on Historic England’s register of buildings at risk and the congregation is working with other local churches to secure funding so that these heritage buildings can once again be a real community asset.
Holy Cross Church has a partnership with three neighbouring churches close to Euston Road – the ‘Camden 4’. All four have buildings that could be used much more by the local community but that need substantial support. The ‘Camden 4’ partners are the Churches of Saint Mary the Virgin, Eversholt Street, Saint Mary Magdalene, Munster Square, Saint George the Martyr, Queen Square, and Holy Cross Church.
Holy Cross Church provides a sanctuary for countless visitors – a stopping-off place, a house of God and a place of prayer and stillness amid the surrounding rush of King’s Cross. It serves local residents but also travellers, commuters, students and wayfarers.
Holy Cross Church remains within the Anglo-Catholic tradition, a community bound by the Eucharist and the Sacraments of the Church. The Revd Christopher Cawrse celebrated his final mass in Holy Cross Church and retired as vicar or parish priest on 13 September 2026. The parish now has an open vacancy for a vicar or parish priest.
• The regular services in Holy Cross Church include the Parish Mass, Sunday, 11 am; Mass, Wednesday-Thursday, 6 pm, Friday 12:45 pm, Saturday 10:30 am, Feast Days 7 pm. During Advent and Lent the church also runs Bible Study courses after Sunday Mass. The church is open every Friday 10 am to 2 pm with a coffee morning.
