Church Of All Saints

CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS

A Grade II* listed church in Peterborough, built in phases between 1886 and 1901 by the renowned architect Temple Moore. The chancel and two bays of the nave were constructed in 1886–7, the nave was completed in 1891, and the tower was finished in 1901. A parish room block in artificial stone was added to the north in 1987.

The church is built of semi-dressed limestone rubble from Long Sutton with Clipsham and Bath stone freestone dressings. Red clay tiled roofs cover the building except for a lead roof on the south aisle.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel under continuous roof, a wide south aisle slightly shorter than the nave, a southeast chapel, a southeast tower, and a south porch. The architectural style is refined late Gothic, drawing chiefly on 14th-century medieval precedent. The three-light flowing west window, set over a west doorway, displays Decorated tracery. The five-light east window features reticulated tracery with sub-reticulations enclosed within the main ones, and has a transom below which are blind lights. Three square-headed windows in the south aisle accommodate the reduced height where pointed windows would not fit. The unbuttressed three-stage tower at the southeast corner of the south aisle is notably simple and austere, with small two-light belfry windows displaying flowing tracery and an embattled parapet.

The interior walls are plastered and painted. There is no chancel arch; instead, a steeply keeled, boarded roof painted and divided into panels runs continuously from one end of the church to the other. Its lightweight construction requires horizontal and vertical iron ties. The nave and chancel are separated from the south aisle by a six-bay arcade with lozenge-shaped piers without capitals, into which the arches die. There is no clerestory. The lean-to roof in the south aisle is divided into panels by moulded ribs and is painted.

The most prominent interior feature is the richly decorated chancel screen dating from 1894, displaying florid tracery in the heads of single lights flanking an ogee-headed and cusped central doorway. A large timber reredos of 1891 rises to the transom of the east window and is decorated with scenes from the Life of Christ flanked by figures of the Apostles. Deal-panelled dadoes run throughout the nave, aisle, and chancel. The nave and aisle have woodblock floors and are furnished with chairs, while the chancel is floored with oak. The choir stalls in the chancel have L-shaped, decorated square ends with later book rests. A wooden polygonal pulpit with blind traceried sides and a tester on a slender stem stands in the church. At the east end of the south aisle, the chapel is screened off with parclose screens of similar design to the chancel screen, featuring similar florid tracery. A ceramic monument on the west wall of the aisle, given in memory of John Perkins (died 1942), is inscribed "Giovanni della Robbia 1469–1529 fecit" and depicts the Virgin and Child in an arched frame decorated with swags of fruit. The font, carved from red Runcorn stone, is decorated with tracery patterns and IHC and other religious symbols.

The church was built for an area of Peterborough being developed in the 1880s for middle-class housing by the Peterborough Land Company, which donated the site. Temple Moore won the commission in 1886 following a competition judged by J.O. Scott. Building began almost immediately, though Moore's original ambitious design—which envisaged a tall, elegant, and expensive northeast tower—was significantly scaled back due to lack of funds. The originally planned north aisle was relocated to the south. Only the chancel and two bays of the nave were completed by the church's opening on 1 November 1887, exactly one year after the laying of the foundation stone. The builder was Alderman John Thompson of Peterborough, a significant Victorian church builder who also worked for Sir Gilbert Scott; the contract was for £2,175. The main structure was completed and consecrated in 1891, with the tower finished in 1901.

Temple Lushington Moore (1856–1920) was one of the greatest architects of the late Gothic Revival. Articled to G.G. Scott junior from 1875–8, he began independent practice in the 1880s. Based in London, much of his finest work is in Yorkshire, where he was educated and maintained family and friendship connections. All Saints is his first major church. His greatest achievements came between the mid-1890s and the start of the First World War and are characterised by what a contemporary critic called "good proportion and sweetness of line." The elaborate ornament and polychromy of 1860s and 1870s architecture have no place in his work, which forms a key bridge between Victorian and 20th-century church architecture. A devout Anglo-Catholic himself, much of his work was for High Church clients.

All Saints is a fine building by Moore, rooted in the sensitive, refined late Gothic style pioneered by G.F. Bodley in the 1860s and by Moore's master, G.G. Scott junior, in the 1870s, though it is surpassed by some of Moore's later churches.