St. Laurence's Catholic Church

Story

The Church of St. Laurence is a Roman Catholic parish church in Cambridge, UK. It is part of the Diocese of East Anglia within the Province of Westminster. It is part of the Cambridge Deanery and is one of the three parishes serving the city of Cambridge, the other two being Our Lady and the English Martyrs and St. Philip Howard.History of the parish and churchThe first permanent post Reformation Roman Catholic church in Cambridge was Our Lady and the English Martyrs opened and consecrated on 8 October 1890. The Roman Catholic population continued to grow and the opening of a Carmelite convent at 104-106 Chesterton Road in 1923 provided a new place of worship on the Northern side of the town.In 1937 the Carmelite sisters moved to a quieter site at Waterbeach, into a building which, when vacated in the early 1970s, became the Waterbeach Lodge residential home for the elderly. Following the departure of the Carmelites from Cambridge, the need for a new parish gradually became apparent and within a year there was a significant donation of £250 towards establishing a new mass centre or church for Roman Catholics in Chesterton.