The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, also known as Farm Street Church, is a Roman Catholic parish church run by the Society of Jesus in Mayfair, central London. Its main entrance is in Farm Street, though it can also be accessed from the adjacent Mount Street Gardens. Sir Simon Jenkins, in his book England's Thousand Best Churches, describes the church as "Gothic Revival at its most sumptuous".
In the 1840s, the Jesuits first began looking for a location for their London church, they found the site in a quiet back street. They found it in what was in fact the mews in a back street. The name 'Farm Street' derives from 'Hay Hill Farm' which, in the eighteenth century, extended from Hill Street eastward beyond Berkeley Square. In 1843 Pope Gregory XVI received a petition from English Catholics for permission to erect a Jesuit Church in London and plans were agreed.
Originally, the intention, by the Superior of the English Jesuits, Fr Randal Lythgoe, was for the church to have a capacity for 900 people. However, this was too expensive, so instead, the church was built for a capacity of 475. The cost of the site was £5,800, which came from multiple private benefactors.
In 1844, the foundation stone was laid by Fr Lythgoe. The church, because of the limited space available, was orientated north-south. The architect was Joseph John Scoles, who also designed the Church of St Francis Xavier in Liverpool, St Ignatius Church in Preston, and was father of Ignatius Scoles SJ, another architect, who designed St Wilfrid's Church also in Preston. Five years later, on the feast of St Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, 31 July 1849, the church was officially opened.
The style is decorated gothic and the front of the church, towards Farm Street, is inspired by that of Beauvais Cathedral. The high altar was designed by Augustus Pugin.
The church was remodelled in 1951 by Adrian Gilbert Scott following damage sustained to the building during the Second World War.
In his 1999 book England's Thousand Best Churches, Sir Simon Jenkins, awards the church two stars, but says "Not an inch of wall surface is without decoration - and this in the austere 1840s, not the colourful late-Victorian era. the right aisle carries large panels portraying the Stations of the Cross, the left aisle has side chapels and confessionals, ingeniously carved within the piers. In the west window above the gallery is excellent modern glass by Evie Hone of 1953, with the richness of colour of a Burne-Jones".