All Saints Church

All Saints Church was designed by George Frederick Bodley, one of the most important architects of the Gothic Revival. The body of the church and base of the tower were built in 1863-4, with the spire and tracery in the north wall completed in 1869-70.

The church is constructed of handmade brick faced with ashlar, with tiled roofs. The interior arcade is of Ancaster stone. It comprises a nave, chancel with tower over the choir, south aisle, south-east vestry and organ chamber, and north-west door.

The Tower and Exterior

The tower is an important Cambridge landmark and one of the tallest structures in the city. The north side facing Jesus Lane is the show front. The church is entirely in an early 14th-century Decorated style—the first use by Bodley of the English Decorated, which subsequently became his preferred style.

The east end has a very large five-light window; the north and south walls of the chancel are blind. The substantial tower design is based on that of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and has a projecting north-east stair turret with an external doorway. The tower features striking carved corbels below the embattled parapet, and gargoyles at the corners. Each face has a pair of transomed two-light belfry windows with pierced stone panels. The north face has a three-light window with intersecting tracery. There is a very fine, tall broach spire, added as part of the second phase of work. It has five tiers of lucarnes, the lowest tier with transoms and flowing tracery in the openings. The north-east stair turret is also topped by a small, crocketted spirelet with a gabled and traceried base that rises above the tower parapet.

The nave has a three-light west window with intersecting tracery, and two- and three-light Decorated-style windows on the north side, the tracery being part of the second phase of work. The north-west porch is gabled. The south aisle is shorter than the nave and has a five-light uncusped east window, a Y-tracery west window and two-light windows in the south wall. There are two doors on the south side, that to the vestry trefoil-headed. The lean-to south-east vestry and boiler house are in the angle between the east end of the south aisle and the chancel.

Interior Architecture and Decoration

The interior is quite dark and the architecture is simple compared to the exterior, but it makes up for this plainness with extraordinarily rich painted decoration and good, contemporary furnishings. The tower stands over the western part of the chancel, with a small sanctuary beyond, and the tower arches, including an arch into the east bay of the south aisle, give the impression of a crossing. The tower arches and the five-bay south arcade have chamfered arches on polygonal piers or responds with moulded capitals and bases. There are tall tie beam and king post roofs in both nave and south aisle. There is a flat timber roof over the choir, under the tower, which is divided into panels by moulded beams, and the sanctuary has a boarded, canted wagon roof.

The walls and roofs of the whole church, and the stonework including the piers and window tracery at the east end, are stencilled with bands of richly coloured pattern including fruit and floral motifs, IHS and IHC monograms, and texts. The choir ceiling has the symbols of the evangelists, and there is a Christ in Majesty flanked by angels and kneeling figures of the Virgin and Saint John over the western tower arch. The paintings were done in stages by several artists. The Christ in Majesty is 1875 by W. H. Hughes, and was repainted in 1904 by B. M. Leach. A painting of Jesus blessing the Children on the west wall is probably also by Hughes. The canopy of honour in the east end of the nave roof was executed by William Morris in 1864. Some of the ceiling decoration was carried out by F. R. Leach in 1870, supervised by C. E. Kempe, and other wall and ceiling decoration was designed by Bodley and painted by Leach in 1878-9. The stencilled decoration was also repaired and partly repainted by Leach in 1904-5.

Fittings and Furnishings

The church has excellent contemporary fittings, mostly designed by Bodley, including glass by Morris and superb painted decoration mainly executed by F. R. Leach and W. H. Hughes.

The 15th-century font survives from the old church. Octagonal, with alternating Tudor roses and shields, it was repainted in the 19th century. There is also a second font, designed by Bodley in 1863. Of alabaster, it has a traceried stem and Tudor roses on the bowl. The timber pulpit of 1864 by Bodley was painted by Wyndham Hope Hughes in 1874. The lectern is 1900. The chancel screen was designed by John Morely and made by Rattee and Kett in 1904. It has delicate Arts-and-Crafts perpendicular tracery and a coved cornice. Above it is a great cross, also painted. The south aisle screen is by Bodley of 1879. The choir stalls and nave benches by Bodley are plain in comparison to the rest of the decoration. The fittings of the sanctuary were also designed by Bodley and include the high altar with riddel posts, 1904 steps to the altar, and a suite of textiles. The chancel floor and the risers of the steps have encaustic tiles.

The glass in the east window of 1866 by Morris and Company is particularly notable. The figures were designed by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Maddox Brown and are set in white backgrounds, an unusual feature for the time. There is also other good 19th- and early 20th-century glass including three windows by Kempe, two by Leach, and one of 1944 by Douglas Strachen.

An 18th-century chandelier in the east tower arch is from the old church. There are some monuments, including a number of 18th- and early 19th-century wall tablets reset from the old church and a 19th-century marble tablet to Very Reverend Herbert Lucock, sometime vicar of All Saints.

Historical Background

All Saints has its origins in the Church of All Saints in the Jewry, in St John's Street. Early prints show that the tower was built on arches over the street. By the mid-19th century the medieval church was too small for the congregation, and as it stood in the way of development of that area of the city, it was decided to move it further north to Jesus Lane. The new church opened in 1864, and the old church was demolished when St John's Street was widened in 1865, although its churchyard is preserved as an open space.

After an initial desire to have Gilbert Scott as architect, George Frederick Bodley, who had been a pupil of Scott's, was chosen to design the new church. Bodley, who had set up his own practice in 1855, was to become one of the most important architects of the Gothic Revival. From 1860 a number of plans were drawn up for the church, but were rejected as being too expensive. The design was finally settled in 1862, and construction carried out in 1863-4 with a further phase of work in 1869-71 including the completion of the tower and spire and some of the north aisle glazing. The cost of the first phase was £5,408 with a further £2,036 spent on the second phase. All Saints is notable for the first introduction of Decorated-style motifs into Bodley's work, as the style became his trademark, but it has recently been noted that the second phase of work made the building more Decorated than had been originally intended with the inclusion of flowing tracery in the windows and substitution of the very slender spire for a heavier broach spire originally proposed. Work carried out in 1904 to the decorative scheme was necessitated by damage caused by smoke from the gas lamps; the church was electrified in 1904 (chancel) and 1907 (nave). The church has been very little altered in the 20th century and is one of the best preserved Anglo-Catholic interiors in England. It became redundant in 1973, and although there were proposals to demolish it a few years later, it passed to the Churches Conservation Trust in 1981.