Sacred Heart Church

The church of the Sacred Heart has a long tradition of musical excellence. Under the enigmatic Fr Driscoll SJ, appointed choirmaster in 1904, the choir of boys and men (complete with choir school) gained a national reputation and sang in the first liturgical performance of the Vaughan Williams G minor Mass in Westminster Cathedral under Sir Richard Terry. The young George Malcolm, a pupil at Wimbledon College next door, used to attend Driscoll’s rehearsals (apparantly though at Farm Street) and said that Driscoll’s way of training the boys ‘in the continental manner’ was a great influence on him; one would like to think that the Sacred Heart is in part responsible for the ‘Westminster sound’!