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St. Katharine’s was founded in 1147 by Queen Matilda as a religious community and medieval hospital for poor infirm people next to the Tower of London. In 1273, after a dispute over its control, Queen Eleanor granted a new Charter, reserving the Foundation’s patronage to the Queens of England. For 678 years, the Foundation carried on its work in East London despite periodic difficulties and renewal. It survived the Reformation, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, reversion to Catholicism under Mary, the Puritan Revolution and the Gordon Riots. It grew to be a village on the banks of the River Thames outside the east walls of the Tower offering sanctuary to immigrants and to the poor. Alas, in 1825 commercial pressure for larger docks up-river caused St. Katharine’s with its 14th & 15th century buildings, and with then some 3,000 inhabitants, to be demolished. This was without compensation and at a time when deteriorating Dickensian poverty in East London much needed St. Katharine’s. The Foundation moved to Regents Park and became a residential almshouse for 125 years. In 1948, St. Katharine’s returned to East London to its present location in Limehouse, a mile from its original site and became a retreat house with Father St. John Groser as Master and Members of the Community of the Resurrection from Mirfield providing worship and service in the locality. The Foundation remained under the care of this Community for some 45 years until 1993. In 2004, St. Katharine’s modernised and expanded its facilities to make available its hospitality more widely within the Church of England and to other churches, charities, voluntary and public sector bodies and to associated individuals. |