Addiscombe Catholic Church

Addiscombe Catholic Church has a rather attractive official website at http://www.addiscombecatholicchurch.com/.

<More photos>

Adddiscombe Catholic Church, the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, is the Catholic parish church covering the east side of Addiscombe. The parish boundary on the west side takes in Canning Road and on the north is pretty similar to the northern boundary of Addiscombe. However to the east it stretches out to cover Monks Orchard and to the south down to Coombe Lane so it also takes in Shirley and nearly reaches Addington.

Location

The church lies on the north side of Bingham Road close to the junction with Shirley Road. The hall lies on the west side.

An aerial view of the church is available on Windows Live Search Maps.

History

The first church opened in 1925 in a building on the corner of Lower Addiscombe Road and Brockhenhurst Road that had originally been built as a hall for the Primrose League and then had been converted to a button factory during the Great War. It was badly damaged by a bomb in 1940 and permanent repairs began in 1949 along with some alterations. These, together with additional alterations in 1952, resulted in a doubling of the original seating capacity.

In 1949 numbers 147 to 151 Bingham Road had been purchased with number 147 being used as the presbytery.  In 1958 the Parish Hall opened on the former site of 149. Building of the church on the site of the former 151 began in late 1962 to the designs of T.J. Denny (who had designed the hall) and it opened on 8th December 1964 with Addiscombe becoming a parish at the same time. It was consecrated in 1975 once the debts incurred in its building had been paid off.