At this time, with the English Penal Laws in force, most Roman Catholic chapels existed under the protection, and within the precincts, of foreign embassies.

After some years in 1788, a replacement church was designed by Joseph Bonomi the Elder, an Italian architect and draughtsman, who had moved to London in 1767 to work in the practice of Robert and James Adam.

This church was supposed to be totally under the control of the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, and a number of prominent Catholics subscribed to fund it.

However, only part of this was carried out but is now visible in the Marian side altar which is his first ever work in mosaic of the human figure, and the sanctuary with the Coronation of the Virgin Mary in an apse based on that of an early Roman basilica.

Amongst many other famous Catholics was Mrs Fitzherbert, who was sacramentally, but not civilly married to George IV,[6] and the young Cardinal Newman.

[5] The Victorian explorer and translator of the Kama Sutra, Sir Richard Burton, married in the church[5] and the novelist Evelyn Waugh had his second wedding here in 1937.

[7] For six years, these "Soho masses" offered twice-monthly services “particularly welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Catholics, their parents, friends and families”.

[8] In 2013, under pressure from the Vatican, they were forced to move to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street in nearby Mayfair; Archbishop Vincent Nichols attended their first Mass there in 2013.