Is Pat Allerton, the Hot Vicar of Notting Hill, the antidote to toxic masculinity?

The Reverend Pat Allerton, near his Notting Hill church - (Supplied)

For the first time in five generations, Christianity is winning more converts than losing them. In Britain and London especially, the Church is once again seen as offering solace and direction to a wayward youth, unmoored by a lack of community and a world that seems to turn on its axis every 24 hours. One of the leaders of this new Church — young, urbane and perhaps more evangelical than most — is Pat Allerton, aka the Hot Vicar of Notting Hill, although he prefers to go by a different alias. On Instagram, you’ll find him under @theportablepriest, an account which has 18.4k followers at the time of writing. Allerton has an additional 9,000 followers on TikTok; and his book, A Pocketful of Hope, which flogs bitesize pearls of wisdom lifted from The Bible, has sold thousands of copies.

Allerton first went viral during the pandemic when he took to the streets of London, visiting residential areas and standing opposite hospitals and prisons blasting out songs of hope and leading remote Church services. People took immediate notice of the fact that Allerton is notoriously handsome — and yes, before you ask, he is familiar with Hot Priest lore. He was “a little late to the Fleabag game,” he admits today, but knows all about the public enthusiasm for Phoebe Waller Bridge’s psychosexual relationship with a Catholic priest played by Andrew Scott in the second season of her hit series.