Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, Cambridge

Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, known as OLEM Church for short, is situated on the corner of Lensfield and Hills Road in the southern part of the city centre. The church spire is a major city landmark, towering over the popular Parker’s Piece area of parkland, and visible for miles around the city centre. An ornate, imposing building designed in the Gothic Revival style, OLEM Church is a relatively new addition to the canon of great architecture in Cambridge. It was completed just over a century ago, in 1890, and is largest Catholic church in Cambridge, and one of the largest in the entire UK.

Cambridge is credited as the cradle of the English Reformation, and is dominated by Anglican churches. Catholic ministers struggled to raise funds for a new church in the late 19th century, until being gifted £70,000 by an unlikely source - Yolande Lynn-Stephens, a French former ballerina and local philanthropist. The church was designed by architects Dunn and Hansom, but building works were dogged by controversy, as the University and local Anglican churches protested the creation of such a large Catholic place of worship.

The ill feeling was made worse by the church’s choice of name – a reference to forty English Catholics that were executed at the time of the English Reformation and subsequent purge of Catholicism. Despite this controversy, the church was successful upon opening, and is still active, holding mass each morning and services throughout the day.