 The church was built in 1858 as the Roman Catholic "St. Willibrorduskerk" designed by the architect Theo Molkenboer.It was a modern replacement for the old St. Willibrordus church which had become too small.That had been the first Catholic church to be built in the Netherlands that was not a hidden church and which had been built on the former location of a sugar factory called "Het Fortuyn", which had burnt down at the close of the 18th century.