Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Ennismore Gardens (formerly All Saints' Church)
Standing at the east end of a little cul-de-sac off Ennismore
Gardens, the former Anglican church of All Saints was
erected in 1848–9, during the first phase of development
on the Kingston House estate. Unusually, it is in the Lombardic style, which enjoyed a revival in the 1840s. Two
striking features of the exterior were not, however, present
when the church opened in 1849: the campanile, though
contemporary in design, dates from about 1860, its construction having been deferred to save money; and the west
front, an almost archaeological recreation of a twelfthcentury Lombardic façade, is a rebuilding of 1891–2.
Conspicuously un-English in its appearance, the building
has been happily adopted by the Russian Orthodox
Church since it ceased to be used for Anglican worship in
the 1950s, and is now the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of
the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints.
Although All Saints' was not erected until the late 1840s,
the building of a new church to serve the developing district had been in contemplation since at least 1835, in
which year the Church Building Commissioners made a
grant of £2,000 for the purpose. (ref. 177) The delay was blamed
on the difficulty of obtaining a suitable site in the district.
In 1836 the Rev. Hibbert Binney, minister at the old Trinity Chapel on the north side of Knightsbridge, called for a
'spacious and well ordered' new church to be erected in a
'secluded' part of Hyde Park immediately behind his
chapel, which, he suggested, should be demolished for a
formal approach to the new building. (ref. 178) Nothing came of
this – though it is possible that a design for a church in the
park was prepared – and the subsequent building of St
Paul's in Wilton Place, in 1840–3, reduced the need for
another church at the eastern end of Knightsbridge.
The possibility of a site on the Kingston House property was first explored in 1840, when the Bishop of London
asked John Elger to reserve a plot for a church on his proposed development there. (ref. 179) In April 1843 the building of a
church on the estate was reportedly under consideration,
but no agreement had yet been reached as to a site. (ref. 180) In fact
it was only with 'great difficulty' that one was eventually
secured on acceptable terms. The credit for this was due in
large measure to the energy of the future first incumbent,
the Rev. William Harness, then minister at the Brompton
Chapel in Montpelier Street. Encouraged by the Rector of
St Margaret's, Westminster, the mother church of the
parish, Harness had set himself the task of securing a site
and getting a church built. The former was accomplished
in 1845, when Lord Listowel at last consented to sell some
of his land. Although only a stone's throw from an existing
large church, Holy Trinity, Brompton, this proximity was
more apparent than real, since there was no direct access
south to either the church or the Brompton road. The site,
costing £1,250, was formally conveyed to the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners in 1849. (ref. 181)
By June 1846, the versatile Lewis Vulliamy had been
appointed architect and had produced plans for a church
costing £8,514. (ref. 182) But instead of a conventional Gothic edifice like that shown in Thomas Allom's panoramic view of
the Kingston House development (Plate 82a), Vulliamy
proposed a building in the Lombardic style. According to
the Ecclesiologist, his plans were not new, having been made
in the mid-1830s for a site in Hyde Park – perhaps the site
behind Trinity Chapel proposed by Binney in 1836. (ref. 183)
The dating of the design is significant. If, as claimed, it
was made in the 1830s, it is a harbinger, albeit a tentative
one, of the short-lived vogue for the Lombardic style, generally held to have arrived fully armed in England in 1840
with Wyatt & Brandon's St Mary and St Nicholas at
Wilton. On the other hand, if All Saints' was designed in
the mid-to-late 1840s it is a fairly tame specimen of the
genre.
Construction could not begin immediately for financial
reasons. A minimum of £7,000 was required before the
Church Building Commissioners would allow work to
start, and by 1848 the building fund was still short of this
figure, in spite of Harness's efforts to drum up subscriptions. (fn. a) The delay was undermining the morale of the
building committee and Harness feared that unless a start
was made soon the members might 'withdraw themselves
in despair'. To cut costs they asked Vulliamy to make a
reduced design, costing no more than £5,000. This he
achieved largely by dispensing with the clerestory. But in
the end the reduced version was not required and the committee was allowed to proceed on the basis of the original
design, minus the campanile, the construction of which
was postponed to save £1,400. (ref. 185) (Some bird's-eye views of
the Crystal Palace in 1851 show the church in its original,
towerless state, see Plates 6b and 7.)
Given the financial constraints, there was no money
available for building a rectory, and Harness continued to
reside at his house in Hyde Park Terrace, Kensington
Gore. Subsequent incumbents occupied a succession of
local houses, in Montpelier Square, Rutland Gate and elsewhere.
Building began in September 1848, with George Baker
& Son of Lambeth as the contractor, and was completed in
the summer of 1849, consecration taking place in July. Vulliamy was paid his fees, totalling £373, in November. (ref. 186) The
church was assigned a district or parish which extended
from Kensington Palace Gardens to Albert Gate and
included the barracks and the streets and estates on the
south side of the Kensington road. Socially this was a very
mixed area, though most of its five thousand inhabitants
lived in the poor and densely crowded neighbourhood near
the barracks. Less than a third of the population could be
accommodated in the new church, which had sittings for
1,308 (including 100 children): only 100 sittings were
free. (ref. 187)
All Saints' has a typical basilican plan, with a nave
flanked by lower, lean-to aisles, and an apse at the east end
(fig. 85): the original west front (like its late-Victorian successor) was a clear expression of this plan. At ground level
the central entrance was recessed behind an arcade (Frontispiece, Plate 92a). In the centre of the front was a wheel
window – higher up and much smaller than its 1890s counterpart.
The exterior was to have been faced in stone. (ref. 188) In the
event, and no doubt to save money, stone was used only for
the west front and north side, which overlooks the communal gardens of Princes Gate. The east and south elevations
are of brick (Plate 92c, 92d).
Inside, round-arched arcades with classical columns
divide the nave from the aisles. Raised on brick plinths, the
columns are of cast iron, originally 'polished to imitate
marble'. <Paint scrapes taken during restoration work in 2005 revealed that the columns had been 'marbled' to imitate porphyry. This has now (2006) been re-instated. The original marbling must have taken place after the Ecclesiologists visit in 1849. The reference to the columns being 'polished to imitate marble' comes from The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge (1859) by Henry George Davis, published posthumously two years after his death in 1857.> Cast iron was also used for the bressummers or
girders supporting the gallery fronts on the north, south
and west sides. The original appearance of the interior was
rather plain and severe, the prevailing tone being French
grey. The Ecclesiologist was critical of the mean-looking
ceiling in the nave – white, flat and dotted with large ventilators – a description which holds good today (Plate 93a, 93c).
The only splash of colour was in the apse, where Owen
Jones (a former pupil of Vulliamy) painted the semi-dome
with a pattern of gold stars on a blue ground, and the
windows were filled with coloured glass (long since
removed). (ref. 189)
On the north side of the apse opening was a readingdesk, 'hoisted on a staircase', and on the south side a pulpit, reached from the vestry by a concealed staircase. The
font was sited in the centre of the nave, among the block of
free seats, and the organ in the children's gallery at the west
end. None of these original fittings has survived.
During the incumbency of William Harness, which lasted until his death in 1869, the interior seems to have
undergone little change. His curate, a Mr Tupper, repainted the Owen Jones decoration in the semi-dome, apparently turning the gold stars silver, and livened up the nave
columns with red paint. Harness himself gave the three
stained-glass windows in the apse (see below). (ref. 190) A new
organ, by Holditch, was installed in 1851, (ref. 191) and it may have
been then that the organ was moved from the west gallery
to the easternmost bay of the north gallery.
Externally, the biggest change was the construction in
about 1860 of the postponed bell-tower. Rising to some
120ft, it was built virtually as shown in Vulliamy's early
sketch, though with a less pointed roof (Plate 92). This
'square topped' version dates from 1848, when he was cutting down his original design for the church to save
money. (ref. 192) It is not known if Vulliamy himself oversaw the
construction, or why the architect R. L. Roumieu should
have prepared two spikily Gothic designs for the campanile
(Frontispiece). (ref. 193)
(fn. h)
Originally the tower had only one clock face, on the west
side. In 1872 a new eight-day movement by Gillett & Bland
was installed and gilded copper dials put up on the other
three sides. At the same time the old slate dial on the west
side was gilded. (ref. 195)
Following the appointment in 1884 of a new and energetic incumbent, the Rev. Ravenscroft Stewart, plans were
drawn up for enlarging and modernizing the church.
These were the work of Charles Harrison Townsend, then
a partner in the practice of Banks & Townsend, under
whose imprint the drawings were prepared. There were
three main components to this scheme: the re-ordering of
the east end to create a raised chancel with choir seats in the
easternmost bay of the nave; the complete rebuilding of the
west end some ten feet further forward, partly to make up
for the seating space lost to the new chancel; and the building of new vestries at the north-east and north-west corners of the church, linked to each other by an ambulatory.
With John T. Chappell of Pimlico as contractor, building
work began in July 1885, but, as less than half the estimated cost of around £9,000 was actually in hand, the remodelling of the west end was postponed. (ref. 196) (While the work
was in progress the congregation met in a temporary
wood-and-iron building erected by J. C. Humphreys on
part of the site of Humphreys' Hall, which itself was being
rebuilt after a fire. (ref. 197) )
Figure 85:
Russian Orthodox Cathedral (formerly All Saints' Church), Ennismore Gardens, plan c. 1990. Lewis Vulliamy, architect, 1848–9; enlarged by C. H. Townsend, 1885–92. The original form of the west end is shown below.
To create the new chancel, Townsend provided a raised
platform in the easternmost bay of the nave, and built up
the floor level in the apse to make a sanctuary. The new
chancel was paved with black-and-white marble squares,
and the sanctuary in 'bastard white with a Sienna border'.
At the same time the remainder of the nave was re-laid
with wood blocks and reseated in oak, and the backs of the
galleries were raised to improve the sight-lines. (ref. 198)
Townsend also designed several new fittings, including a
high altar, a litany-desk, and a pulpit (Plate 93b). All three
were made of carved oak, the altar and the pulpit by Messrs
Daymond. The front of the altar, the only piece still in the
church, was decorated with angels set within niches, and
the pulpit with figures of Moses, Isaiah and Our Lord, representing the Law, the Prophets and the Gospel respectively. A design for a new square-shaped font of white statuary
marble, decorated with low-relief carving and black marble
inlay, was not executed. (ref. 199) Some years later, however,
Townsend designed another font, which was installed in
1896 in the south-west bay of the nave on a specially laid
paving of green cipollino marble. This font consisted of a
large bowl of Mexican onyn with a lining of burnished copper, and an Art Nouveau cover of hand-beaten copper,
made from Townsend's design by Llewellyn Rathbone at
Menai Bridge. (ref. 200)
The rebuilding of the west end of the church eventually
went ahead in 1891–2, but not in the form proposed in
1885. That scheme had included a semi-circular baptistery
in the centre of the west front, flanked by columned porches leading to new vestibules at the western end of the
nave. (ref. 201) Townsend's new design was closely modelled on
the twelfth-century façade of S. Zeno Maggiore in Verona,
which he had visited in 1886. His own characteristic style
occasionally breaks through, however, for example in the
treatment of the low-level windows on either side of the
porch (Plate 92b, 92d). The new front was erected in 1892, by
T. H. Adamson & Sons of Putney. (ref. 202)
Inside, the nave, having lost a bay for the new chancel in
1885, gained one at the west end in matching style, and the
two westernmost columns are of this date, as is the present
west gallery, with its supporting columns of carved wood.
Even before the western extension was begun plans were
afoot to do something about the appearance of the interior,
the decoration of the nave in particular being deemed
'chilly in the extreme'. (ref. 203) The authorities' first concern,
however, was to embellish the re-ordered east end, and in
1891 the semi-dome was handed over to Thomas R.
Spence for decoration. Recently moved to London from
the north-east, Spence was a designer, decorator and architect, who had made a name for himself with St George's
Church, Jesmond (1888–9). At All Saints' he painted the
semi-dome 'after the manner of work characteristic of
Northern Italy', with a view of an Eastern city surmounted by Christ in Majesty. On either side were standing figures of saints and above them a tier of angels. The
predominant tones were yellow, russet and brown, on a rich
blue background. Within only a few years, however,
Spence's painting was obliterated, and no record of it
appears to have survived, although a sketch model was
shown at one of the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions. (ref. 204)
(fn. c)
Spence's work was sacrificed for a much more ambitious
programme of decoration, carried out between 1896 and
1903 by the Arts and Crafts designer Heywood Sumner. As
part of this scheme the walls of the apse were faced with
alabaster and the semi-dome coffered and gilded (Plates
94a, 122). The gilded frieze of vines in the apse is doubtless
also Sumner's. In a somewhat different style are the three
mosaic panels between the windows (Plate 124c). The
designer of these is unknown. Sir William Richmond, the
artist responsible for much mosaic work in St Paul's Cathedral, who was paid £31 for work at All Saints', may have
been consulted about them, but the panels are not characteristic of his manner. (ref. 205)
The principal feature of Sumner's work at All Saints' is
the arresting sequence of sgraffito decoration on the nave
walls, his largest surviving scheme (Plates 122, 123). This
covers the clerestory and upper parts of the nave arcade,
the chancel arch, and the arch over the west gallery. Sgraffito, a technique involving the scraping-back of layers of
coloured plaster to produce decorative effects, was a particular speciality of Sumner, who first essayed it in 1885.
Unlike earlier exponents, however, he used the medium in
a pictorial way to create figurative and naturalistic images
– well demonstrated in his first major commission, a series
of panels illustrating the Benedicite, at Llanfair Kilgeddin
church in Monmouthshire (1888–90).
The sgraffito decoration at All Saints', though conceived as a unity and executed as such, divides into two
sequences: one, a cycle of scriptural scenes – from Creation
to Calvary – the other, in the elerestory, a sequence of saints
plus the Venerable Bede and the Holy Innocents. (A list of
the subjects is given below.) The figures in the clerestory
are framed by oblong panels, on either side of the windows,
while the scriptural scenes occupy roundels filling the
spandrels of the nave arcade. The intervening wall spaces
are covered with a design of trailing foliage and other patterns. As part of this scheme Sumner designed new stained
glass for the clerestory and also for the new west front.
Work began at the east end, after a faculty for the
decoration was issued in September 1896. (ref. 206) But progress
was intermittent, being dependent on funds becoming
available. In spite of this, the original programme
was little changed: on the north wall St Anselm
ousted St Cecilia, and on the western arch the proposed
'Promise to the World' from Genesis (presumably to be
represented by a rainbow) gave way to a series of six
roundels illustrating the six days of Creation. Only the
Jesse tree intended to embrace the wheel window in
the west wall failed to materialize, and this wall remains
undecorated.
Between 1903 and 1955, when All Saints' was made
redundant, changes to the interior were mostly of a minor
character. A new organ had been installed in 1901, and
in 1920 it was re-cased to a design by George Jack, carved
by Joubert. (ref. 207) In 1927 a new oak lectern, designed by
W. A. Forsyth, was installed, evidently replacing
Townsend's reading-desk. (ref. 208) In 1939 F. C. Eden, an expert
in church fittings and furniture who had trained with
Bodley & Garner, designed a Renaissance-style altar for a
small chapel to be formed out of the easternmost bay of the
south aisle. (ref. 209)
It was not until 1924 that the church acquired a room for
parochial activities. This was in a building erected before
the First World War as a side addition to No. 65 Ennismore
Gardens, above two former stables in Ennismore Mews.
The principal room, formerly a dining-room, was oakpanelled, with a Jacobean-style plaster ceiling and a bow
window overlooking the mews (see Plate 78d). The floor
above was adapted as a flat for the vestry clerk, while the
stables were let as garaging. The entrance to Church
House, as it became known, was on the north side, through
a round-headed stone doorcase decorated with a carved
cross above the door. Since converted into a private residence and given another storey, it is now No. 66 Ennismore
Gardens. The main room has lost its oak panelling, but
retains its ornamental ceiling. (ref. 210)
Following closure in 1955, when the district was merged
with that of Holy Trinity, Prince Consort Road, All Saints'
was leased to the Russian Orthodox Church, which has
since bought the freehold. (ref. 211) Before being handed over to
the Orthodox congregation many of the fittings were
removed, and their present whereabouts are mostly
unknown. (fn. d) The pews have been taken out of the nave and an
iconostasis or icon screen installed at the eastern end (Plate
122b). The Royal Gates in the centre of this screen were
rescued from the old Czarist embassy chapel in Welbeck
Street after the 1917 revolution. The icons on the screen
were painted by pupils of the Russian iconographer,
Leonid Ouspensky. (ref. 212)
In the early 1990s a parish hall and other ancillary buildings were erected along the south side of the church, and
some of the existing structures, including the south-east
vestry, demolished. Designed by M. P. Mandrigin, the new
buildings are faced with fawn-coloured bricks, matched to
the fabric of the church. (ref. 213)
Sgraffito decoration
Designed and executed by Heywood Sumner, 1896–1903
(Plates 93a, 94a, 122a, 123)
Chancel arch. Crucifixion (in a mandorla), flanked by
symbols of the four Evangelists and a trellis of vines. The
sgraffito work is embellished with gilded mosaic and
mother-of-pearl.
North clerestory (west to east). St Agnes; St Swithin;
St Giles; St George; St Christopher; St Paul; St Peter;
St Francis; St Maurice; St Anselm; The Venerable Bede;
St Columba.
North nave arcade (west to east). Angel (Heywood Sumner's initials, and the date 1903); Hortus Paradisi (Man
before the Fall); Labor Terrae (Man after the Fall); Abraham Patriarcha; Moses Legislator; Esaias Propheta; Angel
with scroll.
South clerestory (west to east). St Anne; St Catherine;
St Margaret; Holy Innocents (two panels); St Aidan;
St Hilda; St John; St Stephen; St Edmund; St Oswald;
St Augustine.
South nave arcade (west to east). Angel; Ancilla Domini
(the Annunciation); Filius Dei (Nativity scene); Verba
Christi (Sermon on the Mount); Dolor Animae (Agony in
the Garden); Via Crucis (Christ bearing the Cross); Angel
with scroll.
Arch above west gallery. Six roundels illustrating the six
days of Creation.
West porch. The Good Shepherd, in the tympanum over
the west door, embellished with gold mosaic. This is the
only external sgraffito.
Stained glass
Apse. The three round-headed windows (Plate 124c) are
each filled with a figure under an architectural canopy in a
representation of the Transfiguration – Christ flanked by
Moses (left) and Elias. Little is known about these windows, which are of good quality and have been attributed to
Clayton & Bell. (ref. 214) They were the gift of the first minister,
William Harness, made partly in memory of his brother,
who died in 1856, and must have been in place before
William's own death in 1869. (ref. 215) The faintly Romanesque
treatment of the canopies is appropriate in this architectural setting, if unexpected; Gothic would have been more
usual.
Clerestory. The glass here was designed by Heywood
Sumner to complement his sgraffito work (Plates 123c,
124b). Sumner himself thought the windows were too
small and high up to be suitable for figure work, and he
filled them with plant and tree forms of an almost domestic character. Religious imagery is confined to small
emblematic roundels, although these are not present in
every case. Re-glazing began at the east end and kept pace
with the progress of the rest of the decoration.
West wall. All the glass is by Heywood Sumner, who
exhibited the cartoon for the wheel window at the Arts
and Crafts Exhibition of February 1903. Executed in Prior's
glass, the wheel window contains an image of the Lamb of
God in the central roundel, surrounded by twelve angels
with inscriptions from the Te Deum (Plate 124a). (ref. 216) The
small windows of the west front contain slightly sentimental
figures of children with the text 'Suffer Little Children to
Come unto Me', and angels' heads peeping out from folded
wings with the words of the Trisagion (Plate 124b).
Sculpture
Memorial to William Wilson (d.1908), by Frank Derwent
Wood, in the form of a reredos of three panels let into the
alabaster dado of the apse. The central panel, inlaid on a
marble ground with an oval in lapis lazuli and a vine in
Mexican onyx, is flanked by carved white marble reliefs,
in the early Renaissance style, of the Annunciation (Plate
94b) and a Pietà. (ref. 217) Wood exhibited the Pictà at the Royal
Academy in 1910.