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The Interior
The interior of All Saints' is lofty and spacious - the church interior is about 130feet (40 metres) long; 60 feet (18 metres) wide; and roughly as high.- a surprise to most visitors in view of the church's restricted approaches. Yet it occupies only a modest portion of the site of an Augustinian convent which was in need of demolition in the 1870s. This had itself been built on the site of a Roman villa of two thousand years before. The deep foundations of this villa yielded several treasures when All Saints was being constructed. Details are in the companion history.
It feels very English and very Victorian, as might
have been expected of the genius George Edmund Street, President
of the Royal Institute of British Architects, one of the most
eminent in his field in the later 19th century. He lived from
1824 to 1881, and is known best by the general public for his
Royal Courts of Justice, "The Law Courts" , in the Strand.
He designed numerous Major Gothic Revival churches in Britain,
and was also in demand for the careful restoration and extension
of mediaeval cathedrals. His last Major work - one among many
commissions in Europe - was the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity
in Paris, for the American Episcopalians. Our all Saints' was
the penultimate, and sadly he never lived to see either rise above
the foundations. Street was an Anglican worshipper of deep conviction in the Tractarian* mould, and All Saints' design bears out his understanding of dignity and mystery in liturgy - ordered worship centred on the altar.
Our church has been called by one commentator "
a dignified and scholarly building, the interior, in particular,
being excellent of its kind". The bricks were made specially,
many of a pattern ordered by Street, and to his stated satisfaction.
At first, they may seem to have a rather clinical look, but as
you might agree, on closer inspection, that there is everywhere
a slightly "approximate" marrying of brick to brick
in the Roman tradition which saves the effect from hardness. Look
up at the borders of the circular windows above the nave, and
see also, outside, the decorative effect below the eaves. A contrast is afforded by stone from Tivoli and from Brindisi, far to the south on the Adriatic.
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