Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a late Victorian Gothic Revival church built in two phases between 1892 and 1909. The first phase, designed by Thomas Andrews of Margate between 1892 and 1894, created the main body of the church in a style faithful to late 13th-century Gothic precedents. The second phase involved the tower: the base was designed by E.S Prior in 1897, and the upper part was completed by W.D Caröe in 1909.

The church is constructed of rock-faced ragstone with ashlar base to the tower and limestone dressings, covered with red clay tile roofs.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a south-west tower, north porch, north sacristy, south organ chamber, and choir vestry in the tower.

The exterior reflects the two-phase construction. The original 1890s work is archaeologically conventional in its Gothic details. The five-bay nave is tall and flanked by lean-to aisles, with a clerestory containing two-light windows with quatrefoiled circles in the heads. At the west end, a large six-light window displays elaborate Geometrical tracery. The aisles have pairs of lancets in each bay, separated by buttresses. The chancel's east window, much smaller than the west window, has four lights with Geometrical tracery. A weatherboarded vestry on the north of the chancel appears to have been intended as temporary.

The tower represents a freer composition, reflecting its construction by two architects noted for inventive Gothic adaptations. The stages are not rigidly defined; on the west face, the tower is elongated on the north to incorporate a doorway, above which rises the tower stair terminating at the base of the belfry. The lower part is battered with slender buttresses near the corners and in the centre of each face. The near-corner buttresses end at the belfry stage, while the central ones continue to the parapet, marking a strong separation of paired two-light belfry openings. Below these are small fretted openings and a series of narrow rectangular slits. The tower terminates in a parapet with stepped battlements behind which sits a pyramidal roof. The west doors to the tower are recessed, with an oval-shaped opening above the doorway filled with bottle-end glass.

The interior has plastered and whitened walls. The nave features arcades of moulded arches with circular piers and moulded capitals. The chancel arch is moulded with shafts bearing shaft rings to the outer order and a short semi-circular shaft resting on a foliage corbel to the inner order. The nave roof has tie-beams above which rise arch-braces to a collar. The chancel roof is almost semi-circular. The aisles are floored with red and brown tiles in a zig-zag pattern, while the chancel uses more varied colouring with red, black, cream, and orange. The space inside the tower doorway is inventively arranged, dividing into an arched stairway to the tower on the right and a short arched passage to the church, creating interesting visual effects.

The font is of unusual design with variegated marble panels set in the sides of the bowl, standing on short marble shafts with foliage capitals. The chancel contains triple graduated sedilia. The organ is by Hill and Company of Plymouth. A rood was installed in 1941. Many windows contain stained glass dating from 1895 to 1923, with the east and west windows by Percy Bacon.

A First World War memorial crucifix stands to the north-west of the church at the angles of Hartsdown and All Saints Roads. A rendered church hall is located east of the church.

The church was built on land given by the Hatfield family of Hartsdown Park. The foundation stone was laid in 1892 and consecration took place in 1897. The tower was begun in 1907 and completed in 1909.

Thomas Andrews also designed the Church of Holy Trinity, Northdown, Margate, in 1893. Edward Schroeder Prior (1852-1932) was articled to Norman Shaw from 1875 to 1878 and practised independently from 1880. His work is notable for inventive treatment of Gothic and innovations in materials. He was a founding member of the Art Workers' Guild in 1883 and was appointed Slade Professor of Architectural History at Cambridge University in 1912. He published several books on medieval architecture. William Douglas Caröe (1857-1938) was a leading church architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Articled to Edmund Kirby of Liverpool from 1879 to 1880, he transferred his articles in 1881 to J.L Pearson until 1883. After travelling extensively on the continent from 1877 to 1882, he set up practice in London in 1883 and developed a prolific church-building and restoration practice, becoming architect to the deans and chapters of Southwell, Hereford, Brecon, and Exeter. He was architect to the Charity Commission and Ecclesiastical Commission from 1895. Caröe is noted for his freely-treated and often eccentric Gothic style; his grandest church is St David's in Exeter.