St Pancras Church, Ipswich 2.81

Saint Pancras is an active Roman Catholic parish church covering the town center of Ipswich, England. The neo-gothic church was built as part of the British Catholic revival in the Nineteenth Century and was the target of anti-Catholic riots soon after completion.Building and dedication of the churchThe construction of St Pancras was largely financed from the estate of L'Abbe Louis Simon. Abbe Simon was a French émigré priest who came to Ipswich in 1793, during the French Revolution, and became the first Catholic priest to celebrate Mass regularly in Ipswich since the Reformation. Simon was from an aristocratic family in Normandy and sold property he inherited in Normandy to fund church building in his adopted home of Ipswich.The church was built by George Goldie, a prominent Catholic architect. According to the church's website, Goldie may have intended St Pancras to develop into a larger structure, a cathedral for a future Catholic diocese of East Anglia. The church and the area surrounding St Pancras were originally part of the Catholic parish of St Mary's, Woodbridge Road in the Diocese of Northampton. St Pancras was consecrated by the Bishop of Northampton, Francis Amherst with the future Cardinal Manning preaching the sermon.