Birmingham Oratory

Title: Birmingham Oratory

Built in: 1852

Location: 141 Hagley Road, Birmingham B16 8UE

Short intro: local home of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri

Description: The founder of the Birmingham Oratory, John Henry Newman, was a recent convert to Catholicism who sought a place to live out his Catholic life as a vocation. He modelled the oratory on a community founded by St. Philip Neri in Italy in the sixteenth century. The Oratory on Hagley road was formed in 1852, becoming a parish church, and has served the congregation for decades since. The church in its current form was constructed in 1910 to replace the original structure, as a memorial to Newman, and is sometimes called the ‘Little Rome in Birmingham’.  The Oratory played a vital role in the life of J. R. R. Tolkien, who was a parishioner at the congregation for nine years as a child. It was the financial help of Newman that allowed the young Tolkien to study at Birmingham’s King Edward’s School.