The More Connection
Uniquely, amongst all parishes having St. Thomas More as patron (his name was added to the dedication following his canonisation in 1935, the quadricentenary of his martyrdom), this one is located a stone’s throw from the house where he lived from 1524 until he was taken to the Tower and subsequently executed on 6th July 1535.
The house, renamed Beaufort House by the Cecil family who acquired it after St. Thomas’s execution, stood astride what is now Beaufort Street, and the diocesan seminary, Allen Hall, is located in a part of its grounds. St. Thomas worshipped and served mass in Chelsea Old Church, where he built a chapel and the tomb where his first wife, Jane, who died in childbirth, was buried.
