Church of St James, Twickenham

About

The Church of St James, Twickenham, is a Roman Catholic church at 61 Pope's Grove, Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is dedicated to St James the Apostle. It is a building of Townscape Merit.

The church was opened in 1885 by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning and consecrated by the Cardinal in 1887. For a few years before then Roman Catholic mass was celebrated in a mass centre in Grosvenor Road in the centre of Twickenham. Alexander Pope, the Catholic satirist and poet, lived in Pope's Villa a short distance away in Cross Deep from 1718 until his death in 1744.

He gave his name to Pope's Grotto which now links St Catherine's School and Radnor House school under Cross Deep. The church has been described as "a relatively modest Gothic Revival building which takes its cues from thirteenth century architecture". It was paid for by James de Lacey Towle, hence its dedication to St James.

The paintings in the church include a copy of a Raphael of the Madonna and child donated by Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff in about 1900, and a representation of St James 'Matamoros' (conqueror of the Moors) executed by Vicente de Arroyabe in 1995, and donated by a parishioner, Mrs...