The Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart at Wimbledon - a huge, very beautiful and a great location: on a hill in a large garden. The surrounding streets it - the solid shaded greens and small houses. Gothic church towers over the area as a monument to centuries.

In fact, the church opened its doors to the faithful not so long ago, in 1887. The temple has the founder - Edith Erendrap artist, whose portrait is kept in the local museum. Edith settled in Wimbledon, survived the tragic loss: her son had died, her husband (who served as an adviser to the Egyptian army), the mother of the only brother and father. Only a deep faith has saved a woman in those days. Brought up in the doctrine of Unitarianism, she experienced a deep inner turn, converted to Catholicism. With funds, Edith decided to bear true faith Protestant population Wimbledon. First she opened a chapel in his own house and then bought the land for the construction of a large church, and partially funded the project.

The project created a church young Scottish architect Frederick Arthur Walters. The nave of the new church was opened on June 17, 1887, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But after that construction continued even fourteen years: the first and the south aisle of the sanctuary opened in 1895, the north aisle and vestry - in 1898. By that time, construction was experiencing financial difficulties, but she has a new benefactor, a wealthy widow Caroline Curry. It was she who paid for the construction of the north aisle and chapel dedicated to St. Ignatius.

The appearance here of the chapel of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, is not accidental: the founder of the Church of Edith Erendrap from the beginning was based on the spiritual support of the Jesuits, the known activities in the field of education. Temple and the atmosphere is so attracted to his spirituality uimbldontsev that after some time the church was even called "a hotbed of Popery."

The church interior is magnificent. Nave almost twenty meters altitude framed by columns on which are eight sculptures of saints Jesuits. In 1990, the church received a new altar, designed by David John - in a wonderful fit a large statue of Our Lady of Lourdes of the late XIX century. In the chapel of the Sacred Heart initially housed marble altar of the chapel, Edith Erendrap home, but in 1968 he was defeated and replaced by a new one. On the wall of the chapel is a large statue of the Sacred Heart of Michael Clarke, made of fiberglass.

Not so long ago announced the transfer of the Jesuits Church of the Sacred Heart Catholic Archdiocese Sausvorka. As explained by the Order, its resources are not enough to sustain a large temple.