Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Pembroke Road, Clifton

Parish church. Built 1868–72 by George Edmund Street, with 1909 narthex by George Frederick Bodley and 1928 sacristy by F C Eden. The church was gutted by incendiary bombs on 2 December 1940. It was rebuilt 1963–7 by Robert Potter in succession to W H Randoll Blacking, incorporating Street's surviving tower, narthex and sacristy.

The older elements are constructed from red Pennant rubble with limestone and sandstone dressings. The new work is of reinforced concrete with rubble stone dressings. Steel frames the cloister on a rubble base, and an aluminium spire crowns the remains of Street's tower.

The plan demonstrates ideas from the Liturgical Movement, which questioned conventional church planning in the late 1950s. Potter unified the tower, offices, sacristy and new church around a cloister entered through the tower. The lozenge-shaped, liturgically planned church sits to the left of this entrance, incorporating the narthex as a side chapel dedicated to St Richard, with a gallery opposite.

The tower is square in two stages with clasping buttresses and a 1967 aluminium fleche. It features a pointed arched doorway of two orders with dogtooth drip mould, trumeau and uncarved capitals, shouldered flat arches, and doors with elaborate strap hinges, all set within a shallow gabled panel with stripes of Pennant limestone and Mansfield ashlar. The three-light west window has intersecting tracery. An octagonal stair turret stands to the south-east. The church rises to the street on two sides with full-height mullioned windows of reinforced concrete to west and south. The flat-roofed offices feature narrow slit windows and rubble infill walling treated in decorative patterns. The cloister is of Miesian simplicity, almost completely glazed with steel windows. The sacristy is lit by round-arched gable windows under keystones.

The interior is richly appointed. Potter reoriented the church through ninety degrees from Street's original plan, so the altar now faces east. The walls are plastered, and the roof comprises a series of monopitches in concrete and timber. The church is planned around the forward altar set under a baldacchino designed by Randoll Blacking in 1952. Clear ash pews are arranged in two blocks with the choir to one side and baptistry at the west end. A gallery dedicated to Our Lady is opposite, and the organ loft is set over Street's surviving stone entrance arch to the church, which now leads to the former narthex. A piscina to the right of the altar is lined with Broughton Moor slate and engraved with designs by John Skelton. The pulpit, designed by Potter, is of clear ash. The tabernacle was designed by F C Eden, who also designed the calvary rescued from the burning church in 1940 and placed in the alcove behind the organ. The organ was designed by E S Fry and made by J Walker and Sons. The font is of Portland stone on a base of Purbeck marble.

An outstanding fibre glass west window in two panels by John Piper depicts the River and Tree of Life, with further fibre glass panels to his design on the south and north. Simple red glazed lancets flank the altar.

The Chapel of St Richard of Chichester was built as a memorial to R W Randall, the first Vicar of All Saints, who became Dean of Chichester. Three stained glass windows survived the bombing, including the central one depicting Father Randall and All Saints according to Street's original design. The window also commemorates eight leading figures of the nineteenth-century Catholic Revival within the Church of England. The east window, created in 1967 by Christopher Webb (like Potter, a former partner of Randoll Blacking's), completes the chapel. The interior was laid out for weekday services with a central altar in 1972, and glass doors between the chapel and main church were installed in 1969. The sacristy is finely panelled and incorporates chests for the church's outstanding collection of vestments.

All Saints was among the leading churches of the Anglo-Catholic Revival and one of Street's finest works. Potter's resolution of a sensitive brief and difficult site achieved a successful integration of old and new fabric. The new work represents one of his most successful integrations of architecture, art and fittings. The fibre glass murals with their brilliant colours are set in a clear, light geometrical framework, bringing light and unity to the space, while the small surviving chapel and sacristy remain uncompromised by the new building. This is a much-loved and extremely successful place of worship.