Chertsey, St. Anne

On the conversion of Lord and Lady Holland to the Catholic faith in 1850, a domestic chapel was opened at St. Anne’s Hill, Chertsey, the country seat of the Holland family.

For many years, Fr. Charles Comberbach was chaplain. This excellent priest was a convert to Catholicity, and for some years before going to St. Anne’s Hill was stationed at the Priory, Princethorpe. He died in 1890, aged ninety-two. Lady Holland died in 1889, when the estate passed to her kinsman, Lord llchester, a protestant, but the chapel was kept up till the death of Fr. Comberbach.

For some years subsequent to this, a small basilica-shaped chapel on the Woburn Park estate (St. George’s College) did duty as a place of worship for Chertsey Catholics, who were under the spiritual care of Fr. O. Turner, prefect of studies at the college. About 1893 the mission of Chertsey was served every Sunday from the diocesan seminary, Wonersh, by Fr. S. Banfi, D.D. Fr. Banfi was succeeded by the present Fr. Dominic Brownrigg, of the Salesian congregation.

The chapel is an iron building in the Eastwood Road, and adjoins the Convent of Our Lady Help of Christians. The congregation is about 100. The Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval, the distinguished historian and heraldist, is the most noted member of the congregation.

• Chertsey St. Peter, from 1607 to 1888,
• Chertsey Dissenters Chapel from 1841 to 1865, and,
• Chertsey Presbyterian Chapel from 1783 to 1837

• Chertsey St. Peter from 1625 to 1800 and from 1853 to 1875,
• Chertsey Congregational Chapel from 1838 to 1864, and,
• Chertsey Methodist Chapel from 1846 to 1876

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