Our Lady Of The Assumption Roman Catholic Church

Our Lady of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church was originally built as the Portuguese Embassy Chapel around 1730 and was transferred to the Bavarian Embassy in 1736. The church was rebuilt in 1788 after the Gordon Riots. It features a red brick exterior and a slate roof, designed to have a deliberately domestic appearance. The building is two storeys high with a three-window-wide pedimented center flanked by narrow bays. It has a central corniced doorway and flat gauged brick arched windows on either side. The first floor includes three blind semicircular arched windows, with a stone bracket cornice and pediment above.

Inside, the western part of the chapel retains its 18th-century character, featuring galleries around three sides supported by wood grained columns with Adam style capitals. The ceiling plasterwork is in a similar style. The cast iron gallery balustrades were created by Bentley, who shortened them when he altered the east end in a Veneto-Byzantine style starting in 1874. The apse is faced with grey marble panels and includes mosaics added in 1910, along with later panels depicting saints. The font dates from 1788, and there are large relief sculptures of the Assumption, which were formerly part of the High Altar created by J.E. Carew in 1853. Additionally, there is an early 19th-century Italian neo-classical altar that originated from Foxcote House in Ilmington, Warwickshire.