It is often said that a church isn’t the building in which people gather to worship God and to pray together but the community of worshipers themselves. And while this is true, a church building is nevertheless important in its own right, not only as a place where the community is able to assemble for worship and prayer but also where many significant life events occur: weddings, baptisms, funerals. A church is also a special place of sacred architecture that serves as a refuge from the secular world, a space in which to nurture our spiritual needs freed from the humdrum of everyday life, if only briefly.

The year 2026 marks the centenary of the erection of the building in which the ecclesial community of Our Lady of the Rosary (OLR), Kensington assembles to worship and pray together.  It is timely, therefore, to look at the history of that building and the part it has played in the story of the Catholic people of Kensington over the past one hundred years. This is not a history of the OLR parish, which was established in 1914, but of the OLR church, which was built in 1926. Yet it is not just a story about the stonework, the bricks and mortar, and the glass that make up the building. It is mainly about the people who inspired it, who designed it, who built it, who adorned it, and who raised the money to enable it to be built and maintained.

Copies of the book are available from OLR Parish or from Amazon.

Citadel Books, 2026
ISBN: 9780958101943