OF NEW HOUSING AREAS IN LONDON

Foundation Stones of Three New Churches Laid
THREE LONDON DIOCESES REPRESENTED
THE FOUNDATION STONES OF THREE NEW CHURCHES WERE LAID IN THE LONDON AREA ON SATURDAY LAST, AT RUISLIP, LEE AND UPMINSTER.
They are all made necessary by the extraordinary expansion of Greater London within the last half decade. Each of the three London dioceses were represented : Westminster, Southwark and Brentwood.
Cardinal Hindu laid the foundation stone of a new church at. Ruislip and Ickenham, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, seating 500, and costing £13,000. The new church will be consecrated as soon as it is finished.
Bishop Brown laid the foundation stone of a new church at Lee, Kent, dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, seating 400, and costing £1 3,000. While the foundation stone was laid on the Feast of the Annunciation, this new church is expected to be opened officially on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Bishop Doubleday laid the foundation stone of a new church at Upminster, dedicated to St. Joseph, seating 400, and costing £7,000. 1 t replaces a long, low-roofed hut, used since the mission was first founded from Romford. Parishioners of St. Joseph's purchased their own bricks and laid them in positicn themselves.
AT RUISLIP To be Consecrated Immediately
At Ruislip His Eminence Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, laid the foundation stone of a new church to serve the growing districts of Ruislip and Ickenham.
This was one of His Eminence's first public engagements since his return from Rome.
The new church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, will seat some 500 people, and is being built at a cost of some £12,000. An old house next door to the church is being converted into a presbytery at a further cost of £1,500.
Will be Free of Debt
The Rev. Edward Sutton, the parish priest, already has the necessary money in hand, and as there will thus be no debt an the building. the new church will be able to be consecrated as soon as it is finished. The date provisionally fixed for this is June L5.
Partly Completed
The church, which is already partly completed, is being built in a modern adaptation of the Romanesque style. A curious feature of the construction, and unusual in this style, is that there will be neither arches nor columns. The church is built throughout of bricks, and there is a rounded apse.
At the consecration the deacon was the Rev. Bernard Canham, and the subdeacon the Rev. T. G. Daniel, both curates of the parish.
His Eminence was attended by Mgr. Collins and by the Rev. Edward Sutton, parish priest. Among the visiting clergy were the Rev. J. Caulfield, of Pinner, who recently witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of a new church in his own large parish. and the Rev. Matthew Lynch, of Uxbridge.
AT LEE
Surprise Donation of
£5,000
On the same day, the Feast of the Annunciation, Mgr. Brown, Bishop of Pella, laid the foundation stone of the new Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, at Lee, Kent.
It is hoped that the church will be finished in time for a solemn opening on another great feast of Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, December 8.
The church, which will seat 400 people, is being built in a free modern adaptation of Romanesque, with an hexagonal apse and ambulatory behind the High Altar. It is to have a square tower, 70 feet in height, and it is being built entirely of Leicestershire bricks with autumn-green tiles.
Surprise Donations
It was at first intended to build only the nave, but a surprise donation of 15,000 has enabled the Rev. Ft. Redding, the parish priest, to start work on the whole building, which will consist of a nave and two aisles.
Mass was first celebrated in Lee in 1892 in a hired room, later in the schools, and is now celebrated in a temporary building which will be replaced by the new church.
The addition of a new presbytery will enable the priest to live next to his church.
The new church and presbytery are being built together at a cost of £15,000.
A representative gathering of the local clergy included the Canons Monk, and Holland.
AT UPMINSTER They Bought Their Own Bricks
The people of Upminster on Saturday afternoon last helped to build their own church.
It was a reward for a long journey to see the steady stream of the parishioners of St. Joseph's walking from the brick stack to the growing walls, and in defiance of all the trade union rules, place the bricks on the wall of the church ready for the workmen to cement them where they had been placed.
Nearly the whole circuit of the walls bore one or more bricks before the procession ended. This effective and pleasing departure from the more usual method of making a contribution was the climax of a ceremony that marked yet another milestone in the growth of the church in Essex.
About four hundred people must have been at St. Mary's Road, to see Dr. Doubleday, Bishop of Brentwood, lay the foundation atone that bore his name, with all the traditional ceremony of the Church.
Replaces Hut
The new St. Joseph's, which replaces a long, low-roofed hut seating only some 200, will, when complete, serve a new and still rapidly growing district which in the last ten years has trebled its population.
Dr. Doubleday, in an address after the ceremony, congratulated the parish priest, Fr. Michael Healy on his zeal and courage, and the people on their loyalty and self-sacrifice; he recalled that the parish of Upminster was an offshoot of Romford where Canon van Meenen was then parish priest, and that it was his foresight that had secured the site, the