All Hallows-on-the-Wall
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All Hallows-on-the-Wall is a
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
church located in the
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
. Its name refers to its location, inside and adjacent to
London Wall The London Wall was a defensive wall first built by the Romans around the strategically important port town of Londinium in AD 200, and is now the name of a modern street in the City of London. It has origins as an initial mound wall and di ...
, the former city wall.


Current use

From 2014 All Hallows became the headquarters of the urban youth charity XLP, and the home of City Gates Church, London. XLP creates positive futures for young people in impoverished urban areas. It combats bullying and intimidation, weapons, and gangs. It develops a response to boredom due to a lack of organised activities, absent parents, and living in areas with a high crime rate. The church is often used to host XLP events and has received an annual visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. City Gates Church is a congregation with roots in the
British New Church Movement The British New Church Movement (BNCM) is a neocharismatic evangelical Christian movement. Its origin is associated with the Charismatic Movement of the 1960s, although it both predates it and has an agenda that goes beyond it. It was originally kno ...
, and
Ichthus Christian Fellowship Ichthus Christian Fellowship is a neocharismatic Christian church movement and Apostolic network based in London, United Kingdom. It is part of the British New Church Movement (BNCM) and has links with other BNCM leaders and movements, especially G ...
. It meets at All Hallows at 11am every week, and is the first community to hold regular services there since 1941. City Gates builds on All Hallows’ previous traditions of serving the poor. It runs the Better Job Project, English Conversation Classes, live music nights and other events. Covid19 brought activities to a halt. The church resumed its meetings in September 2021, and returned to serving the community with its projects in December 2022.


History

The present church was constructed by
George Dance the Younger George Dance the Younger RA (1 April 1741 – 14 January 1825) was an English architect and surveyor as well as a portraitist. The fifth and youngest son of the architect George Dance the Elder, he came from a family of architects, artists a ...
in 1767, replacing an earlier church built some time in the early 12th century on a bastion of the old
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
wall. It became renowned for its
hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...
s, who lived in cells in the church. All Hallows escaped destruction in the
Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
in 1666 due to its position under the wall, but subsequently fell into dereliction. Dance rebuilt the church when he was only 24 years old. He had recently returned from
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
where he had conducted detailed studies of Classical buildings. The new All Hallows took its inspiration from the Classical world and was remarkably simple in form, with no aisles; its interior consists solely of a
barrel-vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
ed
nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
with a half-dome
apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...
at the far end, with decoration deriving from the ancient
Temple of Venus and Rome The Temple of Venus and Roma (Latin: ''Templum Veneris et Romae'') is thought to have been the largest temple in Ancient Rome. Located on the Velian Hill, between the eastern edge of the Forum Romanum and the Colosseum, in Rome, it was dedicated ...
in the city of
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
. Attached Ionic columns support a frieze, rather than the usual entablature. The exterior is plain and of brick, except for the stone-faced tower above the porch at the west end. The Church was noted for its work in offering its services to the poor; many workers, including women in domestic service, would take the early trains into the City to avoid peak fares. A demand for services and refreshment in the Parish led to the Vicar of the Church, the Reverend Sir Montague Fowler, 4th Baronet, third son of Sir John Fowler, to operate services for their benefit. This was a popular initiative (which also had tents constructed in the Churchyard to provide refreshments) which led to the construction of the buildings behind the Church which were to be used as an educational institute. Because of this the Church had one of the largest congregations in the City at a time when many City Churches were beginning to seem redundant. All Hallows was damaged during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
but was restored in the early 1960s. It is a
guild church A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
associated with the
Worshipful Company of Carpenters The Worshipful Company of Carpenters is a livery company of the City of London. The Carpenters were traditionally different from a fellow wood-crafting company, the Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers, in that carpenters utilised nails wh ...
, which has held its annual elections in the church for over 600 years. Until 1994, it was the headquarters of the
Council for the Care of Churches The Central Council for the Care of Churches of the Church of England was formed in 1917, developing from the Central Committee for the Protection of English Churches under the Archbishops' Council. It became the Church Buildings Council in 2007, ...
. On 14 December 1994 the Council for the Care of Churches and the
Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral ...
moved out of All Hallows, leaving the church empty for two and a half years. Then in April 1997 the London and South East Team of
Christian Aid Christian Aid is the relief and development agency of 41 Christian (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox) churches in the UK and Ireland, and works to support sustainable development, eradicate poverty, support civil society and provide disaster ...
were given use of the building and
Garth Hewitt Garth Hewitt (born December 1946) is an English Christian singer‑songwriter and Anglican priest, active since the early 1970s to the present. His commitment to social justice pervades his music and led him to found the human rights charity Amos ...
, the Team Leader, was appointed Guild Vicar and licensed by the Bishop of London on 18 June 1997. All Hallows went on to become the centre of a thriving community for Christian Aid and its supporters, becoming a centre for issues of Justice, Development and Peace. Under the wing of Christian Aid other organisations have been based at All Hallows, including the Community Fundraising Unit of Christian Aid, the Amos Trust (a small charity with a commitment to justice issues), The Time of Our Lives (the archbishop of Canterbury's Millennium youth event organised from the crypt of All Hallows), and
Greenbelt festival Greenbelt Festival is a festival of arts, faith and justice held annually in England since 1974. Greenbelt has grown out of an evangelical Christian music festival with an audience of 1,500 young people into its current form, a more inclusive f ...
s (an arts festival with a Christian viewpoint and a partner of Christian Aid). The church was designated a Grade I
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
on 4 January 1950.


Notable parishioners

* Robert Woodford, a lawyer who is best known as the author of an extensive diary that covers the period 1637-1641, married Hannah Haunch at All Hallows in 1635. *
Samuel John Stone Samuel John Stone (25 April 1839 – 19 November 1900) was an English poet, hymnodist, and a priest in the Church of England. Life and career Stone was born on 25 April 1839 at his father's rectory in the parish of Whitmore, Staffordshire. H ...
was Rector of All Hallows until 1900.


See also

*
List of churches and cathedrals of London This is a list of cathedrals, churches and chapels in Greater London, which is divided into 32 London boroughs and the City of London. The list focuses on the more permanent churches and buildings which identify themselves as places of Chris ...


References


External links


All Hallows-on-the-Wall website

XLP

City Gates Church

Location map
(Multimap.com) {{DEFAULTSORT:All Hallows-On-The-Wall 1767 establishments in England 18th-century Church of England church buildings Church of England church buildings in the City of London Grade I listed churches in the City of London Churches bombed by the Luftwaffe in London Diocese of London