St Laurence's Church
A brick-built Roman Catholic parish church of 1958 on Milton Road, serving north Cambridge.
St Laurence's is a Roman Catholic parish church at 91 Milton Road, in the Diocese of East Anglia. It is dedicated to St Laurence of Rome and is one of three Catholic parishes in the city. The other two are St Philip Howard and the older Our Lady and the English Martyrs.
From a tin church to Milton Road
Catholic worship on the north side of the town had a base from 1923, when a Carmelite convent opened on Chesterton Road. The sisters left for Waterbeach in 1937, and after they went Masses were said in houses and other informal places. A corrugated iron church was then put up on Chesterton High Street, and in 1947 it became the parish church of St Laurence's. The tin building had a varied past: it began as part of a wartime hospital, the First Eastern General, and was later re-erected in the rectory garden at Our Lady and the English Martyrs under the name Houghton Hall.
Fund-raising for a permanent church picked up in the 1950s. Bishop Parker laid the foundation stone at Milton Road on 8 March 1958, and the new church was blessed and dedicated on 24 August 1958. The tin church itself was moved on to Fen Ditton, where it took the name of St Vincent de Paul.
The building
St Laurence's is a modern brick church with an open plan, so that everyone in the congregation can see the altar area. It has stayed much as it was when built, apart from changes after the Second Vatican Council (the altar rails went and the altar was redesigned), a glass roof on the porch around the millennium and a rear balcony added in the 2000s for a growing congregation.
Practical notes
The parish website lists Mass times, a weekly newsletter and parish groups. It also notes a night vigil of Eucharistic adoration on the first Friday of each month. The parish office keeps limited hours, so check the website before calling in.
