ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
All Saints
Margaret Street - Restoration Appeal
Saints will see that Phase 2 of the restoration work has begun. The new work includes the removal the great west window and the small one from the north aisle to take to their workshops for restoration. Meanwhile conservationists are at work on the roof and wall spaces at the rear of the nave, the north aisle; and when that is finished, the south aisle.We hope you will choose to support All Saints in this work, as we also need to raise funds for Phase 3, which will include work on the chancel and new lighting. There are a number of exciting fundraising events to support - see the diary page - or you can donate by clicking the link below.
To make an online donation using a credit or debit card using a secure site, please click the button below
All Saints is not just a great building, it is a living and working church. It stands open every day to serve not only its congregation but the thousands of people who come to this part of London for work, education, healthcare, shopping and recreation. Our forebears have given us this wonderful place. It is now our responsibility to care for it and continue the mission they began.
"It was here, in the 1850s, that the revolution in architecture began...It led the way, All Saints Margaret Street, in church building."
Sir John Betjeman
Using this page as a staring point, you can find out all about the progress of the restoration work.
You can also watch a film from 1970
of Sir John Betjeman talking about the importance
of Butterfield and All Saints as part of a television programme he was making about Victorian
Architecture
for the BBC (it includes some fine footage of the
building), see larger versions of some of the photographs on this page, showing the results of stage 1 of the restoration work, and read the thoughts of a number of well known people about what All Saints means to them.
"All
Saints is England's most intriguing Victorian church. It has always excited
mixed emotions, tucked away, black and austere in an anonymous Westminster
side-street. Yet beneath the grime this stupendous building, erected in
1859 with expense no object, is William Butterfield's masterpiece. Its
soaring gables and vaults, its polychrome stonework and internal crescendo
to the altar, eagerly await salvation. Above all its colours, to which
Butterfield attached both architectural and spiritual importance, lie
hidden beneath the dirt of ages. Here is a burst of light lurking behind
a wall of darkness. It cries out for release and revelation." Simon Jenkins
"All Saints Margaret Street
is one of the glories of London. It is a marvellous building with a wonderful
tradition of worship and music. My father was Musical Director of the
church for several years and always spoke of his time there with enormous
fondness."
Julian Lloyd Webber
"I first entered
All Saints church Margaret Street when I was a teenager and each time
I re-enter it, the feeling is recaptured. It is a statement of mystery.
Two minutes from Oxford Circus you are drawn into mystery. None of us
have 'solved' the mystery - but this place tugs us further in. For all
the glories of its liturgical and preaching traditions, All Saints is
seen (by me) at its best when empty or at one of the quiet Low Masses."
AN Wilson
"All Saints is not only a great architectural landmark, it is even more one to the heroic recovery of the Catholic tradition within the Church of England. No one who enters this church leaves unaffected by its spiritually charged atmosphere, one which arises from the constant exercise of prayer, penance and liturgy. This is one of those rare buildings in which the very walls speak. I owe it an incalculable debt in my own spiritual life for half-a-century." Sir Roy Strong
"The
aura of every church is so different. What moves me, and what I search
for, is a sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's not the
architecture of All Saints Margaret Street that transcends, nor its art,
nor its liturgy, nor its music (though all these are profoundly lovely,
and unusually so, even in this great city) - it is the calm, still
voice of the presence of God. It's a privilege for those of us who
have found the place, and pray there. I am blessed to be one of them."
Tim Waterstone
"All Saints, Margaret Street, is architecturally one of the most remarkable Victorian churches in the capital. The architect was William Butterfield, who managed on the small and difficult site to produce a soaring and magnificent house of God to serve the traditions of his High Anglicanism. It is celebrated for its fine music and the dignity and beauty of its services, but above all it is a church of prayer and silence. Even when the church is empty, to enter its incense-scented interior is to feel the cares and preoccupations of daily living fall away in the contemplation of the beauty of holiness. It was partly because of the unique atmosphere which the church holds for me, and my great joy in trying to describe it, that I used the church for a significant meeting place in my novel The Murder Room." P D James
We welcome you to visit All Saints Margaret Street yourself to experience this unique and important place of worship.