Founded by Junipero Serra on 12. January 1777.
Relocated by Junipero Serra on 19. November 1781 to a new location after floods from the Guadalupe River destroyed the original Mission.

8th Mission of California. Located adjacent to the oldest college in California, the University of Santa Clara.

Flood, fire and earthquake forced five relocations until the Mission finally settled on this current final site in 1822. For more details consult Mission Church History, or since the Mission went into Jesuit hands, see the information in the Jesuits Community pages. One of the Mission bells is a gift from Spain’s King Alfonso XIII. The present church is the 6th one(!), constructed 1928 after the 5th Church was lost in a 1926 fire. All changes are documented well by this Wikipedia page. Entry is free. Mission Church does not have a gift store and the Mission Museum is hosted by the de Saisset Museum. Gardens surrounding the Mission are very pretty. I often see there students hanging around or studying in shadows of the trees.

The present day Church can sit hundreds of parishioners. Sometimes classical concerts are being held in the Mission Church. I still remember the All Saints Day performance of Johannes Brahms "Ein Deutsches Requiem" in this church, a very spiritual experience.

The Cemetery: Old Cemetery at the Church has been converted into a Rose Garden. The greater Mission Cemetery has been relocated several blocks away to the Lincoln Street, corner Bellomy. However, this is not really "a Spanish Mission Cemetery." These are large premises, a ministry of the Jesuits, with several huge mausoleums and thousands of crypts and niches. I found no section containing specifically Spanish, Indigenous and Mexican graves. I saw mostly Italian names. One of the mausoleums is noteworthy: De Saisset family, the donors of many exhibits to the Mission Museum.

Adjacent to the Mission is the de Saisset Museum of Art, which also hosts the Mission Museum. Entry is free. Mission Museum is located downstairs. It is small, 4 rooms, but the exhibits are really very well made.

Since the Church is on the premises of the University, parking can be challenging. Visitors might even elect to park on outlying locations of the grounds and walk a block.