Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Middlesbrough

Built between 1873 and 1878 to designs by G.E. Street, with Simpson and Baker of London as builders. This is a substantial cruciform church constructed in coursed rockfaced limestone with quoins, plain clay tile roofs (renewed on the nave, transepts and chancel) featuring pierced ridge crestings. The interior employs brick with stone arcades and dressings, and a painted chancel.

The church displays Decorated Gothic style with Geometric-style tracery throughout. The west front facing Linthorpe Road features a gabled porch with a stepped-chamfered opening under a hoodmould, flanked by angle buttresses. The porch contains recessed boarded double doors with scrolled strap hinges set in a moulded surround with nook shafts, and is topped by five stepped blind lancets in the gable.

The nave has three stepped windows with battered sills and continuous hoodmoulds, with similar windows in the west aisle. A 7-bay clerestorey with cusped windows in hollow-chamfered surrounds runs beneath a continuous hoodmould. The aisles comprise 4 bays with hoodmoulds, sill strings, and gabled buttresses between bays, with shaped rafter-ends at the eaves. The transepts display angle buttresses, large windows with continuous hoodmoulds, sill strings, and stepped lancets in their gables. An octagonal sanctus bell turret with a spirelet and three bell openings beneath continuous chevron moulding sits at the east side of the north transept, alongside a stack. The chancel features a lower 2-bay design with round clerestorey windows and an east rose window under a hoodmould with carved stops, while the chancel aisles contain doorways and mullioned-and-transomed windows. All nave, chancel and porch roofs are steeply pitched with cross finials at their ends. Two bronze war memorial tablets are positioned below the south transept window.

Internally, the 4-bay nave arcades feature two moulded orders with keeled compound piers, moulded capitals and bases. Similar arches appear in the transepts, chancel and chapel. Sculptures of saints occupy enriched niches in the spandrels between the nave arcades and transept arches. Carved traceried stone screens separate the chapels from the chancel. The nave roof is a ceiled false hammerbeam design with embattled collars and traceried trusses, while the chancel has a painted pointed barrel roof with a moulded wall plate featuring carved cresting. A west organ gallery with a panelled front stands above a mid-20th century glazed screen.

The sanctuary contains a carved octagonal stone font with a carved wood cover, patterned marble paving, and cusped-arcaded communion rails. A marble 3-bay panelled altar from 1897 is carved with angels and a pelican. An alabaster aedicule tabernacle with buttresses, portcullis and embattled parapet stands behind. The reredos, designed in 1891 by Burlison and Grylls, features traceried panels painted with evangelists, prophets and symbols, surrounded by a 7-bay arcade of buttressed traceried panels with a painted crucifixion in a gabled centrepiece.

The north aisle chapel contains a richly carved oak altar and a carved, painted reredos depicting the Resurrection, with carved dado panelling, all of mid-20th century date. A war memorial altar and reredos of similar period stand beneath the south transept window. A richly carved rood suspended from the chancel arch dates to 1926.

The stained glass includes an east window of 1890 by Burlison and Grylls depicting Christ the King. Good examples by A.O. Hemming appear in the north aisle, with additional stained glass in the south transept, west window and aisles dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.