All Saints, Margaret Street | |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Denomination | Church of England |
Churchmanship | Anglo-Catholic |
Website | allsaintsmargaretstreet |
Architecture | |
Heritage designation | Grade I |
Architect(s) | William Butterfield |
Style | Gothic Revival |
Administration | |
Deanery | Westminster (St Marylebone) |
Archdeaconry | Charing Cross |
Diocese | London |
Province | Canterbury |
Clergy | |
Vicar(s) | Prebendary Alan Moses |
Assistant priest(s) | Fr Michael Bowie |
Honorary priest(s) | Fr Gerald Beauchamp Fr Julian Browning |
Laity | |
Director of music | Timothy Byram-Wigfield |
Organist(s) | Charles Andrews |
Organ scholar | Laurence Long |
Churchwarden(s) | John Forde Christopher Self |
William Butterfield's All Saints, Margaret Street, Smarthistory |
All Saints, Margaret Street, is a Grade I listed Anglican church in London. The church was designed by the architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece and a pioneering building of the High Victorian Gothic style that would characterize British architecture from around 1850 to 1870.
The church is situated on the north side of Margaret Street in Fitzrovia, near Oxford Street, within a small courtyard. Two other buildings face onto this courtyard: one is the vicarage and the other (formerly a choir school) now houses the parish room and flats for assistant priests.
All Saints is noted for its architecture, style of worship and musical tradition.
All Saints had its origins in the Margaret Street Chapel which had stood on the site since the 1760s. The chapel had "proceeded upwards through the various gradations of Dissent and Low-Churchism" until 1829, when the Tractarian William Dodsworth became its incumbent. Dodsworth later converted to Roman Catholicism, as did one of his successors, Frederick Oakeley. Before his resignation from the post, Oakeley, who was later to describe the chapel as "a complete paragon of ugliness" had conceived the idea of rebuilding the chapel in what he considered a correct ecclesiastical style, and had collected a sum of almost £3,000 for the purpose. He was succeeded at the chapel by his assistant William Upton Richards.
In 1845, Alexander Beresford Hope realised that the chapel rebuilding scheme could be combined with the project of the Cambridge Camden Society to found a model church. His proposal met with the approval of Upton Richards, George Chandler, rector of All Souls, and Charles James Blomfield, the Bishop of London. It was decided that the architectural and ecclesiological aspects of the project would be put entirely under the control of the Cambridge Camden Society, who appointed Sir Stephen Glynne and Beresford Hope to oversee the work. In the event, Glynne was unable to take an active part, and Beresford Hope took sole charge.