COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
Sir Jacob Epstein’s majestic sculpture of the Madonna and Child hanging above the entrance to Dean’s Mews on the north side of Cavendish Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
As we were strolling around Oxford Street, Harley Street, Cavendish Square, Wigmore Street and Manchester Square last weekend, Charlotte and I found ourselves beneath Sir Jacob Epstein’s majestic sculpture of the Madonna and Child hanging above the entrance to Dean’s Mews on the north side of Cavendish Square.
Dean’s Mews is a cobbled mews behind two grand linked buildings of a former convent on Cavendish Square and Epstein’s sculpture has been suspended above the entrance for the past 70 years.
Dean’s Mews dates from the early 18th century, when the fields into the area were turned into houses. But, despite appearances, all the buildings there date from later redevelopments and post-war rebuilding.
This part of West London was developed piecemeal from the 1710s onwards for Edward Harley (1689-1741), 2nd Earl of Oxford. He owned the farmland to the north of London, and gave his name to Oxford Street and Harley Street. Other streets named after Harley properties include Wigmore Street and Wimpole Street.
Cavendish Square was laid out by the architect John Price in 1717 with housing on three sides. The whole of the north side was leased in 1720 to James Brydges (1673-1744), 1st Duke of Chandos, who had plans for a large mansion on the north side of the square. But his grand designs were cancelled after the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. The duke then decided to develop the site commercially, but only a handful of buildings were erected.
Other building plans also failed to materialise, and the north side of the square was filled in with housing when George Foster Tufnell bought the site. Dean’s Mews was developed as a classic mews, providing stabling for horses and servants of the grander houses facing Cavendish Square, now a garden square that had a circle shape.
The buildings on either side of the mews entrance, Nos 11-14 Cavendish Square, received unusually grand Palladian treatment for a pair of town houses. They were built ca 1770, with each front symmetrical, in the style of John Vardy. The houses were speculatively built by Tufnell, possibly with masonry prepared for the abortive Academy of the Society of Dilettanti intended for the site.
Nos 11-14 were leased to the Convent of the Holy Child of Jesus in 1889-1891. The sisters had previously lived in cramped accommodation near Marylebone High Street. But, needing more space for their teaching activities, they moved to Cavendish Square in 1889. There they continued the development work in the area, redeveloping some of the smaller back properties behind into a school.
The buildings were severely damaged by bombing in World War II. After the war, the convent commissioned the architect Louis Osman (1914-1996) to restore the damaged buildings and to create the linking bridge across the mews.
Osman’s design featured a bridge that linked two parts of the complex and would support a large sculpture. The nuns were keen to have a sculpture of the Madonna and Child and planned to employ a Catholic sculptor. It was Osman’s idea to include a statute of the Madonna and Child ‘levitating’ against the façade of the bridge. The statue was to be cast from roofing lead retrieved from the bombed building.
Osman, however, was determined to have a work by Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959). Without consulting the nuns, Osman independently commissioned Epstein to design the cast for the statue of the Madonna and Child, and, had him produce a maquette.
When the convent rejected Epstein’s design on cost grounds, he and Osman, with help from Kenneth Clark and the Arts Council, agreed to cover the cost themselves. The convent agreed to Epstein’s design provided he would listen any suggestions they made. The convent gave its approval without knowing that the sculptor was Jewish. It appears they only found out when the Arts Council congratulated the mother superior on her ‘innovative choice of artist.’
Epstein accepted their concerns about the face of the Madonna and changed the head, from one based on Kathleen Garman, later his second wife, to one modelled on her friend Marcella Bazrtti. The convent then began working hard to raise funds for the sculpture to be cast in lead made with lead from the roof of the bombed building.
Epstein’s sculpture was formally unveiled on 14 May 1953 by Rab Butler, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Cavendish Square Madonna and Child met with near universal praise. Its success led to a dramatic reappraisal of Epstein’s work in general and to more public commissions. That year Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff commissioned his giant Christ in Majesty, unveiled in 1957.
In 1955, Sir Basil Spence, the architect building the new Coventry Cathedral, commissioned his giant sculpture of Saint Michael’s Victory over the Devil.
When Basil Spence commissioned Jacob Epstein to work in Coventry Cathedral, some members of the rebuilding committee objected. They said some of his earlier works were controversial. And, although Coventry was at the centre of post-war reconciliation, some even objected, saying Epstein was a Jew. To this, Spence retorted: ‘So was Jesus Christ.’ His earlier sculpture Ecce Homo was given to Coventry cathedral at the wish of Lady Epstein and was dedicated on 22 March 1969.
The convent eventually moved out of Cavendish Square and was replaced by Heythrop College in 1970. Heythrop College moved to Kensington Square in 1993, and finally closed in 2019. Meanwhile, the King’s Fund moved into the site in 1995. The King’s Fund is a charitable foundation working for better health, especially in London.
Behind the bridge and the floating Madonna, Dean’s Mews turns down a curved slope, lined with brick arches on one side, into a large courtyard space, giving the area an unusual and hidden air so close to Oxford Street. The arch and Epstein’s sculpture are Grade II listed.
The architect Louis Osman (1914-1996) designed the linking bridge across Dean’s Mews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Michaelhouse café and Saint Michael’s Church on Trinity Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI). Yom Kippur, the solemn day of repetance and fasting in the Jewish calendar, begins at sunset this evening (24 September 2023), when the evening service begins with Kol Nidre, and it ends at nightfall tomorrow evening (25 September).
I was in London yesterday for the annual reunion and celebration day of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). Later this morning, I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton. But, before the day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection.
Later this week, the Church celebrates Saint Michael and All Angels (29 September). So my reflections each morning this week and next are taking this format:
1, A reflection on a church named after Saint Michael or his depiction in Church Art;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Trinitarian truths expressed in a stained-glass window in Michaelhouse, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Saint Michael’s Church (Michaelhouse), Cambridge:
Michaelhouse is an interesting café located in Saint Michael’s Church in Trinity Street in the oldest part of Cambridge. It is just a few steps from Sidney Sussex College, around the corner at the end of Green Street. It stands opposite Gonville and Caius College and is close to Great Saint Mary’s Church, Trinity College and King’s College Chapel.
The café is set within the 14th century church of Saint Michael’s, a parish and collegiate church. But, while it is an award-winning café and restaurant, Michaelhouse remains a church – you could say it offers refreshment for both body and soul. Church services are held in the chancel several days a week, and the mediaeval Hervey de Stanton Chapel offers a peaceful space that is also a setting at times for concerts.
Michaelhouse recalls the name of one of the earliest Cambridge colleges, which flourished from 1324 until 1546, when it was merged with King’s Hall to form Trinity College. Michaelhouse was the second residential college in Cambridge, following Peterhouse (1284) – although King’s Hall was established in 1317, it did not acquire premises until it was re-founded by King Edward III in 1336.
Michaelhouse was founded by Hervey de Stanton, Edward II’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Chief Justice, who had acquired the advowson (or right of presentation) to the parish of Saint Michael along with property on the High Street.
In May 1324, Edward II granted a royal charter to the new college for scholars in Holy Orders. Three months later, Bishop John Hotham of Ely granted his own charter. De Stanton suggested to the bishop that the master and fellows, who were all priests, could provide daily worship for the parish as they were using the church as their chapel. And so, the first Master of Michaelhouse, Walter de Buxton, was also Vicar of Saint Michael’s.
When de Stanton died on All Souls’ Day 1325, he was buried in the unfinished chancel.
The college continued to acquire more properties, including property between Saint Michael’s Lane (today’s Trinity Lane) and the river, an area now occupied by the south-west corner of the Great Court of Trinity College, New Court, Scholars’ Lawn and the Wren Library, property around Garret Hostel Lane leading down to the river, and a navigable stream.
Nothing much remains of the original Michaelhouse buildings, apart from Saint Michael’s Church. Until a chapel was completed at Gonville Hall in 1396, both Michaelhouse and Gonville shared the use of the two aisles, with Gonville using the north aisle and Michaelhouse the south.
John Fisher, who was Master of Michaelhouse in 1497-1501, was Chancellor of Cambridge University, and was instrumental in the foundation of Saint John’s College and Christ’s College. As Bishop of Rochester, Fisher took a conservative stance on the royal supremacy and the reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and was executed in 1535.
By the time of the dissolution of the monastic houses, Michaelhouse had an income greater than that of Westminster Abbey. The college was dissolved in 1546 and was merged with King’s Hall to form Trinity College, the largest and wealthiest college in Cambridge to this day.
Until the completion of Trinity College Chapel in 1565, Trinity College used Saint Michael’s as its chapel. As the new chapel was being built, 36 scholars’ stalls from the former chapel of King’s Hall, some with carved misericords, were moved to Saint Michael’s, where they remain to this day.
Trinity College continued to hold the patronage of the living of Saint Michael’s and from the 16th to the 18th centuries, Trinity College fellows were chaplains of Saint Michael’s.
After a fire in 1849, the church was rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott and his son, George Gilbert Scott junior. Their work included a new stone porch, a new East Window, and a three-tiered new reredos.
The artists who worked with Scott included FR Leach, who also worked with GF Bodley on the ceiling and frescoes of All Saints’ Church on Jesus Lane, the ceiling of Jesus College Chapel, the dining hall ceiling at Queens’ College, and at Saint Botolph’s Church on Trumpington Street. Leach painted the chancel ceiling and arches in Saint Michael’s to designs by Scott as a thank-offering, without accepting any payment. Parts of the north aisle had been painted previously to designs by Holman Hunt.
In time, the parish was too small to be sustainable, and it was finally united with Great Saint Mary’s Church, the university church, in 1908.
By the early 1990s, the church buildings were increasingly in need of significant repair, and an ambitious fundraising and building project began. The Michaelhouse Centre opened in 2002, and is a registered charity. Michaelhouse is now a key cultural and spiritual location in Cambridge, a unique community resource in the heart of the city, and a place of beauty and tranquillity.
Inside Michaelhouse café and Saint Michael’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 20: 1-16 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4 and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13 But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Trinity Street, Cambridge, with Michaelhouse café and Saint Michael’s Church on the left (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayer:
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Flinging open the doors.’ This theme is introduced today by the Revd Anthony Gyu-Yong Shim, Diocese of Daejeon, Korea.
After re-opening the doors of Saint Mark’s Church, Yesan, in 2019, Anthony reflects on how he reached out to the local community:
It was daunting when I first took up my role because when I started the services again there were no parishioners, only my family. I often ask myself ‘What can a church do for the local community, not just for the church?’
I set up a reading group at the church. Some of the people who came had left the church in the past, some were Anglicans and some were not. Thankfully they all attended the first worship service. We also have a programme called ‘Shinmyeong Theatre’, where people come once a month to see a movie and talk about it. When the government decided that their ‘Urban Regeneration New Deal Project’ would take place in our area I was appointed a ‘village coordinator’ and have been working with the residents council on the project.
Love for God and love for our neighbours are the main pillars of the Bible. Christianity has a spirituality of hospitality for strangers. I want Saint Mark’s to be a place that anyone can easily visit. To come, sit and rest; to seek a religious question or answer, or to have a talk over a cup of coffee. Saint Mark’s is a small church, but I hope it is a significant neighbour in the community. The church needs to shine humble confidence in Jesus.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (24 September 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
O God make us faithful in the mission of your church.
Help us seek justice and work for healing.
Renew us with your Holy Spirit to build your kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Amen.
The Collect:
O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Hervey de Stanton Chapel in Saint Michael’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Archbishop John Colton, and an angel with the coat-of-arms of Armagh, on the side of Saint Michael’s Court in Trinity Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, is known for its architecture, its liturgy, its interior, its rich decoration and its music (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
I was in London earlier today for the annual reunion and celebration day of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) in Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street.
Bishop Michael Marshall was, first, priest-in-charge and, later, rector of Holy Trinity Church from 1997 to 2007. But three decades earlier, from 1969 to 1975, he had been the Vicar of All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London, which I visited last Saturday afternoon (23 September 2023).
All Saints’ Church is midway along Margaret Street, which runs parallel to the east end of Oxford Street. This Anglo-Catholic church in Fitzrovia, in the heart of the West End, is known for its architecture, for its style of liturgy, for its interior, rich decoration and beautiful fittings, and for its musical tradition. It a ‘hidden gem’ in central London, many regard it as one of the foremost examples of High Victorian Gothic architecture, and it is a Grade I listed building.
All Saints’ Church was designed in 1850 by William Butterfield (1814-1900), an architect strongly associated with Gothic revival church building and the Oxford Movement. But its origins lie in the Margaret Street Chapel, which had stood on the site from the 1760s.
All Saints’ Church owes it building to the Cambridge Camden Society and was designed by William Butterfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The chapel had ‘proceeded upwards through the various gradations of Dissent and Low-Churchism’ until 1829, when the Tractarian William Dodsworth (1798-1861) became the incumbent. Dodsworth resigned in 1839 and later became a Roman Catholic, as did his successor, the Lichfield hymn-writer, Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880), who was at the chapel from 1839 to 1845.
Oakeley is best known for his translation of the Christmas carol Adeste Fideles (‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’). He later described the chapel as ‘a complete paragon of ugliness.’ Before resigning, he conceived the idea of rebuilding the chapel in what he considered a correct ecclesiastical style, and had collected a sum of almost £3,000 for the project.
All Saints’ Church owes it building to the Cambridge Camden Society, founded as the Ecclesiological Society in 1839 and which changed its name in 1845. The society was formed with the aim of reviving historically authentic Anglican worship through architecture.
By 1843, its 700 members included the Archbishop of Canterbury, and its monthly magazine, The Ecclesiologist, reviewed new churches and assessed their architectural and liturgical significance.
The Nativity scene in the frieze on the north wall was designed by Butterfield, painted by Alexander Gibbs, and fired by Henry Poole (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
While Oakley was still at Margaret Street in 1841, the society proposed building a ‘model church on a large and splendid scale’ that would embody the society’s values. It was to be in late 13th and early 14th century Gothic style and built honestly of solid materials. Its ornament should decorate its construction, and its artist should be ‘a single, pious and laborious artist alone, pondering deeply over his duty to do his best for the service of God’s Holy Religion.’
Above all, the church was to be built so that the ‘Rubricks and Canons of the Church of England may be consistently observed, and the Sacraments rubrically and decently administered.’
The congregation at All Saints agreed that the Ecclesiological Society’s model church could be built there, although, at just 100 ft sq, the site was small for a church, choir school and clergy house.The proposals from the Cambridge Camden Society for a model church were approved in 1845 by the Revd William Upton Richards (1811-1873) of All Saints, the Very Revd George Chandler, Rector of All Souls’ Church nearby and Dean of Chichester, and Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London.
The chancel decoration is the work of Sir Ninian Comper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The project was supervised and largely sponsored by Alexander Beresford-Hope (1820-1887), who was from a well-known Irish family and later an MP and son-in-law of the Marquis of Salisbury. Beresford-Hope chose Butterfield as the architect, although the two often disagreed about important aspects of the work.
During his career, Butterfield designed almost 100 churches and related buildings, including the chapels of Balliol College and Keble College, Oxford, and Saint Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford. He built in a highly personal form of Gothic revival, and All Saints’ Church remains his masterpiece and a pioneering building of the High Victorian Gothic style in church architecture.
The site was bought for £14,500, the last service at the old chapel was held on Easter Monday 1850, and the foundation stone of the new church was laid on All Saints’ Day 1850 by Edward Bouverie Pusey, a key figure in the Oxford Movement. The new church was consecrated on 28 May 1859.
The panel on the north wall of the tower
depicting the Ascension (1891) is the last section of tilework added by Butterfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
All Saints marked a new stage in the development of the Gothic Revival in English architecture. It is built of brick, in contrast to Gothic Revival churches of the 1840s, typically built of grey Kentish ragstone. Previous architecture in the 19th-century Gothic Revival had copied mediaeval buildings, but Butterfield departed considerably from mediaeval Gothic practice, and he was innovative in using new building materials such as brick.
The Ecclesiologists originally extolled the virtues of rough stone walls, but they were converted by the brick churches of Italy and North Germany. Butterfield’s chosen pink brick was more expensive than stone, and the bold chequered patterning seems to have been based on English East Anglian tradition.
At All Saints, Butterfield felt a mission to ‘give dignity to brick,’ and the quality of the brick he chose made it more expensive than stone. The exterior of All Saints employs red brick, heavily banded and patterned with black brick, with bands of stone and carved elements in the gate, the church wall and spire. Decoration is built into the structure, making All Saints the first example of ‘structural polychromy’ in London.
The Baptistry houses the font (1857-1858) and the large paschal candlestick, a copy of one in the Certosa at Pavia, Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
All Saints’ Church is particularly celebrated for its interior decoration. Every surface is richly patterned or decorated: the floor in diaper patterned tiles, wall surfaces in geometrical patterned brick, tile, and marble, as well as tiles with painted decoration, large friezes executed in painted tiles, a painted ceiling, and painted and gilded timberwork behind the altar.
The vast tiled panels on the north wall were painted by Alexander Gibbs and manufactured by Henry Poole and Sons. They are rich with Biblical symbolism and depict a variety of important figures and themes from the Bible and the Early Church.
The rear of the chancel features a series of paintings on gilded boards, within a delicately carved brightly patterned Gothic screen. The immense reredos was originally completed by William Dyce in 1853-1859. But it suffered from the polluting effects of London air, and was reproduced by Sir Ninian Comper in 1909 on wooden panels in front of the original. Starting at the base with the depiction of Christ’s earthly life, the eye is drawn up to Christ in glory, the free movement of the figures there contrasting with the more static figures beneath.
The great silver pyx, designed by Ninan Comper, was given by the Duke of Newcastle in 1928 as a memorial to choristers killed in World War I.
The Lady Chapel (1911), at the east end of the north aisle, was designed by Ninian Comper in late Gothic style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The Lady Chapel (1911), at the east end of the north aisle, was designed by Ninian Comper in late Gothic style. It was enlarged in 1971 by Ian Grant as a memorial to the Revd Kenneth Ross (1908-1970), eighth vicar of All Saints (1957-1969). The reredos is of Caen stone and alabaster, and shows the Virgin and Child surrounded by angels and saints. It was restored by Peter Larkworthy in 1978-1980.
The north wall is dominated by a large ceramic tile frieze designed by Butterfield, painted by Alexander Gibbs, and fired by Henry Poole and Sons, installed in 1873. It depicts a variety of scenes from the Old Testament, a central Nativity scene and depictions of Early Church Fathers.
The designs that adorn the walls and pillars owe much to John Ruskin who, in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), advocated the use of chequers, zig-zags, stripes and geometrical colour mosaic. Matthew Digby Wyatt’s Specimens of Geometrical Mosaic of the Middle Ages may also have influenced some of the detailing.
Butterfield’s tiled floor, made by Minton, is deep red with black checks and a white stone diaper, while the north and south aisles have a triangular variation on this pattern. The roof, now repainted, was originally in chocolate and white with blue detailing.
The west window (1877) by Alexander Gibbs is inspired by the 14th-century Jesse Tree window in Wells Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The stained-glass windows are limited by the density of buildings around the church. The original windows were designed by Alfred Gérente (1821-1868), but his work was later replaced. The large west window, originally fitted with glass by Gerente in 1853-1858, was replaced in 1877 with a design by Alexander Gibbs based on the Tree of Jesse window in Wells Cathedral.
The glass in the clerestory dates from 1853 and is the work of Michael O’Connor, who also designed the east window of the south chancel aisle which depicts Christ in Majesty with Saint Edward Martyr and Saint Augustine.
The Baptistry in the south-west corner has marble tiling that features an image of the Pelican in her Piety in the ceiling tiles.
The church stands within a small courtyard. Two other buildings face onto the courtyard: one is the vicarage and the other, formerly a choir school, now houses the parish room and flats for assistant priests.
Soaring above the courtyard is the 227-feet spire – higher than the towers of Westminster Abbey.
The Stained-glass window depicting the archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael was designed by Alexander Gibbs in the 1860s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
After seeing All Saints, John Ruskin wrote: ‘Having done this, we may do anything … and I believe it to be possible for us, not only to equal, but far to surpass, in some respects, any Gothic yet seen in Northern countries.’ However, Ruskin did not ‘altogether like the arrangements of colour in the brickwork.’
The architect Charles Locke Eastlake said Butterfield’s design was ‘a bold and magnificent endeavour to shake off the trammels of antiquarian precedent, which had long fettered the progress of the Revival, to create not a new style, but a development of previous styles.’
The author and columnist Simon Jenkins says All Saints is ‘architecturally England’s most celebrated Victorian church.’ The architectural historian Simon Thurley lists All Saints among the 10 most important buildings in Britain.
In the 1970 BBC Television programme, Four With Betjeman – Victorian Architects and Architecture, the poet Sir John Betjeman visited All Saints. In his view, ‘It was here, in the 1850s, that the revolution in architecture began … It led the way, All Saints Margaret Street, in church building.’
The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the interior as ‘dazzling, though in an eminently High Victorian ostentatiousness or obtrusiveness … No part of the walls is left undecorated. From everywhere the praise of the Lord is drummed into you.’
Simon Jenkins says All Saints is ‘architecturally England’s most celebrated Victorian church’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The choristers of All Saints sang at the coronations of Edward VII (1902), George V (1911), George VI (1937) and Elizabeth II (1953). The choir school closed in 1968, and the boys’ voices were replaced by adult sopranos.
Several pieces have been commissioned for the church, including Walter Vale’s arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom and All-Night Vigil. Rachmaninoff heard Vale’s adaptations when he visited All Saints in 1915 and 1923.
All Saints’ organ is a four-manual Harrison and Harrison instrument with 65 speaking stops, built in 1910 to a specification drawn up by Walter Vale.
The organists have included Richard Redhead, the composer of ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Bright the Vision’, Walter Vale (1907-1939), William Lloyd Webber (1939-1948), John Birch (1953-1958), Michael Fleming (1958-1968) and Harry Bramma (1989-2004).
John Betjeman declared, ‘It was here, in the 1850s, that the revolution in architecture began … It led the way, All Saints Margaret Street, in church building’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Recent vicars have included David Michael Hope (1982-1985), later Bishop of London and Archbishop of York. The Revd Peter Benedict Anthony has been the Parish Priest of All Saints since 2021.
The style of worship at All Saints is Anglo-Catholic, including ritual, choir and organ music, vestments and incense. As a traditional Anglo-Catholic parish, All Saints has passed resolutions accepting only male episcopal and priestly sacramental ministry.
On Sundays, High Mass is at 11 am, there is a Low Mass at 5:15, and Evensong and Benediction at 6 pm. On week days, from Monday to Friday, Low Mass is at 12 noon and 6: 30 pm. On Solemnities and certain Feast Days, High Mass is at 6:30. On Saturdays, there is Low Mass at 12 noon and the Vigil Mass at 6:30.
All Saints’ Church is open from 11 am to 7 pm, Monday to Friday.
