Church Of All Saints

This is a church of 1844, built as a garrison church for Canterbury’s Northgate Barracks. The architect is not known. Internal partitions were likely added between 1975 and 1976.

The church is constructed of Kentish ragstone laid in a crazy-paving pattern, with limestone dressings, and a slate roof. It is oriented southwest. The plan comprises an eight-bay nave and a small, narrow chancel.

The church’s design draws on motifs from 13th-century Gothic architecture. The long, broad nave is marked by buttresses with offsets, and each bay contains a lancet window. The east wall of the chancel features three graduated lancets. There are two doorways in the north wall of the nave. The western front breaks forward slightly, with a plain doorway, a small window above it, and a single-light bellcote at the apex of the nave roof. Pinnacles, resembling chimney-pots, originally marked the corners and centre of the nave, but are missing from the southeast and southwest corners.

Inside, the walls are plastered and whitewashed. The four western bays of the nave have been partitioned off for meetings and community activities. A plain arch with a hood defines the transition between the nave and chancel. A flat ceiling slopes towards the east above the worship area, and screen walls have created a small chapel within the original chancel.

At the west end is a five-bay cast-iron arcade with flat four-centred arches, supporting a former west gallery. An early 16th-century brass, originally from St Mary Northgate, depicts Ralph Brown, mayor of Canterbury in 1509, with an inscription in English. Twentieth-century glass in the northwest window of the worship area was relocated from nearby St Gregory's church in 1980.

The church served the Northgate Barracks and was designed to accommodate large numbers of men, as indicated by the two north-facing doorways and the western entrance. After becoming redundant and undergoing a period of closure, it was purchased by the diocese for £44,000 in 1975 and re-opened as a parish church in 1976.

The church is designated at Grade II for its special interest as an early Victorian garrison church built in the Early English Gothic style of the 13th century.