All Saints’ Church | Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

All Saints’ Church

All Saints’ Church
Shrublands Road, Berkhamsted
HP4 3HY

All Saints’ Church is an early 20th-century red brick building that stands on the corner of Cross Oak Road and Shrublands Road, the Kitsbury area of Berkhamsted.

The housing expansion in the Kitsbury area in the late 19th century meamt that there was a need for a new church to accommodate the growing population. Kitsbury worshippers were attending services in a barn in Kitsbury Road behind the Berkhamsted Union Workhouse (now the Kitsbury Parade shops), and later in a “Tin Tabernacle” on Cross Oak Road, a temporary church made of corrugated iron.

The Revd Arthur Johnson, the Rector of St Peter’s (1883-1902), and Lord Brownlow obtained permission to build a “chapel-of-ease to meet local religious needs and relieve the demand on St Peter’s Parish Church down on the High Street. The foundation stone of All saints was laid in 1905 and local volunteers helped to lay the foundations. the main building was erected by Mr F. Harrowell of Tring.

The architect Charles Henry Rew, along with his son Noel Ackroyd Rew, worked on designs for the new church. CH Rew had previously designed Berkhamsted School Chapel on Castle Street.

Rew’s original plans included twin towers at an extended western end of the church, although these were never realised.

A number of fittings were brought from St Peter’s Parish Church to adorn the new Kitsbury church, including:

  • A fragment of a Norman font that was mentioned in Cobb’s History of Berkhamsted was built into the chancel wall (the church was re-ordered in the 1970s and the direction of worship reversed, so this is area now at the back of the church)
  • A marble font that was given to St Peter’s in 1662

In 1915, a three-manual pipe organ built by Kirkland of London was installed in All Saints, having been dismantled and brought from  All Saints’ Church in Tufnell Park, London.

All Saints Berkhamsted had a thriving congregation, but despite this, the church closed in 1923 due to lack of funds. Unusually, the church re-opened again in 1938 after considerable fundraising efforts.

In the 1970s, All Saints merged with the Methodist Church to form an Anglican/Methodist Local Ecumenical Partnership. The Methodist Chapel on the High Street closed and was demolished; it is now the site of Domino’s Pizza restaurant.

 

Cemetery connections

Discover the memorials in Rectory Lane Cemetery with historical links to All Saints’ Church

3 burials are found — click on a burial below to find out more:


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