In 1865 Father Baines, the priest at Witham opened a chapel in Coggeshall dedicated to St Cecilia. Its location is not known but for four years mass was occasionally celebrated there.

In 1866 Richard Rann of Messing Park converted to Catholicism and became a great benefactor of a new mission in Kelvedon.  A school was conducted and priests administered to the local population including that of Coggeshall. In 1897  a community of Franciscan Nuns took charge of a convent orphanage in Kelvedon and the nuns began to visit Coggeshall to care for the poor.

In 1898 the priest in Kelvedon, Father Egglemeers, began to celebrate Mass once a month in the home of Mrs Sheldrake in Coggeshall. This was continued by Father Byles from 1905 – 1907. He was later famous as the priest from the Titanic who helped others to safety and twice refused a place in a lifeboat. His body was never found, or at least never identified.

In 1907 the Sheldrakes built a new house at White Barn, just out of Kelvedon on the Coggeshall Road where a permanent private oratory was established.  Mass was celebrated twice a month and the Coggeshall Catholics worshipped there as it was closer than the Kelvedon church itself.

When Father Richard Gay became parish priest in Kelvedon in 1922 he began to celebrate Mass at Starling Leeze in East Street Coggeshall the home of Captain and Mrs Dixon. It was apparent that the Coggeshall Catholic community needed larger premises and in 1923 Mass was moved to the old Hitcham School in West Street and then to the Assembly Rooms above the Co-op store in Church Street. By then the congregation had grown to thirty and classes for children were held on Saturdays by the Dominican Sisters from Kelvedon.

By the 1930s attendance at Mass had reached seventy. During the second world war the congregation expanded with the presence of Irish construction workers building the new airfield at Marks Hall.

Mrs Dixon remarried – her new husband was the famous artist Cyril Barraud and they lived at the old Royal Oak, next to the church on Stoneham Street. She offered her old house, Starling Leeze, for the use of a Catholic school but it was judged too small for that purpose.

The crucifix or Calvary which stands in front of the church was put up in 1932. The figure is in terra-cotta and came from Belgium, and the oak cross, with its gabled shelter was designed and made by Bryan Saunders, the Coggeshall, wood-carver. The concrete base of three steps is also local work, executed by Mr Allan Totham.

After a decline in the Congregation during the 1950s, the 1960s saw an expansion and the church was rebuilt and extended in 1962-63 doubling its size the work largely carried out by four parishioners at a cost of £1900.

Sources; An undated booklet by Father Stewart Foster BA (There is a copy in Coggeshall Museum);  Leicester Catholic News 13/02/1932