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All Souls Church was completed in 1880 as a memorial to Walter Farquhar Hook, the Vicar of Leeds who was responsible and famous for the growth of Anglicanism in the city. During Dr Hooks incumbency, the number of churches in Leeds more than doubled from 15 to 36, church schools reached 30 from 3 and parsonages from 6 to 29. |
Dr Walter Farquhar Hook
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All Souls was situated in an area known as the 'Laylands', an area ministering to the disparate populations of Blenheim and Carlton Hill. Blenheim with its grand houses and lodges surrounding the square, stood in stark contrast besides the impoverished population living in the narrow rows of back to back terraced houses and small industries that hugged the hillside down to Camp Hill (now Little London) and onto Meanwood Road.
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Back to Back Houses - Looking up Wells Close with All Souls on the left
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Houses on Blenheim Square - North West side
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Gilbert Scott, perhaps the greatest ecclesiastical architect of the time, designed All Souls' on a grand scale, having in mind the nave of one of the great Yorkshire abbeys. He died two days after completing his plans, his design being then carried out by his son, John Oldrid Scott.
View East, 1888
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View East, 2016
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Looking down the Nave - 1880
All Souls Church stood without its tower for many years until funds could be found to raise it.
All Souls Church without its tower in 1888
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The Church completed with tower after the World War One (note war memorial & ladder up the spirilet)
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Cecil Hook, the son of Walter Farquhar Hook, became the first vicar and his portrait appears on a number of the panels of the font canopy, painted by the Pre -Raphaelite artist Emily Ford.
These panels were restored in 2014 by funds raised by the Victorian Society.
The spire of this canopy soars to about thirty feet towards the stone vaulting of the baptistry completed at the beginning of the 20th century.
The tower was built to contain a ring of fourteen bells, it has only one, the prayer bell, which is still in use and was originally hung in the small spiralet to the south of the Chancel.
The entire flooring of All Souls' consists of mosaic work by Rusts, gradually increasing in richness as the sanctuary is approached and based on ancient Roman examples.
The entire flooring of All Souls' consists of mosaic work by Rusts, gradually increasing in richness as the sanctuary is approached and based on ancient Roman examples.
The majority of the glass, by Clayton and Bell, forms a complete 'set', Old Testament in the North Aisle and New Testament in the South, rounded off by the great East Window showing the major events in the life of Jesus. Charles Eamer Kemp designed the great West Window, one clerestory window in the chancel and the painted panels in the reredos of the High Altar.
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The High Altar contains detailed images, including a carving of a devil. It is said that one of the priests was so disapproving of the Altar carvings that they were covered up as shown in the picture below. |
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Francis Skidmore, considered the finest metal worker of his day (but who died in poverty,) made the gates and screen work in the chancel.
The great organ was built as the 'showpiece' instrument of Abbott & Smith in 1880 and rebuilt by the same builders in 1938. £5000 has just been awarded to us by the Pilling Trust to restore the great Tromba stop and we hope for further renovation in the future. The gilded oak casework was designed by Hick and Johnson .
Although always an Anglo-Catholic centre of teaching and worship, All Souls' was never involved in the unseemly riots and disturbances which affected so many churches, including some in Leeds, which occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century. It seems to have carried on a quiet and uneventful history of witness, service and worship, simply standing as the House of God among the people.
Later additions include a huge hanging Rood in the chancel arch, carved by the Leeds College of Art in the 1930's and placed there as a memorial to Cecil Hook , and - in 2015 - a painting of 'Christ for Leeds' by Keith Senior, our organist, which stands on an easel in the nave.
Although always an Anglo-Catholic centre of teaching and worship, All Souls' was never involved in the unseemly riots and disturbances which affected so many churches, including some in Leeds, which occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century. It seems to have carried on a quiet and uneventful history of witness, service and worship, simply standing as the House of God among the people.
Later additions include a huge hanging Rood in the chancel arch, carved by the Leeds College of Art in the 1930's and placed there as a memorial to Cecil Hook , and - in 2015 - a painting of 'Christ for Leeds' by Keith Senior, our organist, which stands on an easel in the nave.
The rows of terraced back to back housing have gone and the square fronting the West front of the church is now a conservation area, All Souls' being designated a grade II listed building with special importance. It continues in the 21st century as it has always done, quietly and with order and is greatly loved and cared for by its small band of devoted people.
All Souls history, with one exceptional and unfortunate period in the 1980s, has been one of devotion to the teaching of Catholic doctrine and a faithfulness to sacramental worship. Its doors are closed to nobody: everyone, no matter what their background or faith or lack of it, is welcome. This and the quality it aspires to in its worship—and the great building itself— are its strengths. It is in these things and in new insights for service to the community that the history of All Souls' continues in its quiet witness to the saving love of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.
The Church Council has ambitions to enhance facilities both in the church and in the under-croft. After the organ is refurbished it is hoped to hold concerts and lunchtime recitals.
"All Souls Blackman Lane used to be the most extreme – in my day you’d have to stay bat the altar rail for a very long time if you wanted to receive the chalice. Fr. Hum (who claimed three reasons for his not being a Roman Catholic – his wife and is two daughters) would sigh and eventually bring down the chalice. The Blessed Sacrament was reserved on two places (illegal, even in the Roman Catholic Church and they used the Roman Rite. The current vicar is a woman – Hum must be turning in his grave. “At the golden jubilee celebrations at All Souls, Leeds, in 1930, Burroughs refused to wear a mitre though he consented to wear a cope. He was somewhat disconcerted when the congregation knelt to receive his blessing as he processed to the high altar, and had to be told to bless them by one of his attendant deacons. ‘He stared at the people, meditated a moment and then lifted up his right hand to a boy scout half salute.’”
Leeds and the Oxford Movement : Study of High Church Activity in the Rural Deaneries of Allerton, Armley, Headingley and Whitkirk in the Diocese of Ripon, 1836-1934 – N. Yates
Here are some historical anecdotes:
Lord Grimthorpe, described as a ‘lawyer, mechanician, architect and controvertialist’ managed to see that flying buttresses were positioned inside rather than outside the building, as Gilbert Scott, the architect., had stipulated.
The church was consecrated by both archbishops . At the consecration mass the Archbishop of Canterbury got lost in the service as he stood at the high altar just before the creed. There was an embarrassed silence until a small boy in the choir suddenly called out: 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' and the Archbishop continued!
Grimthorpe was vehemently opposed to any representation of Walter Hook. Legend has it that he defaced a carved head of Walter Hook in the sanctuary. Its replacement remains, looking towards a head of Hook’s wife across the choir.
In its early life All Souls' was a church where aspiring young men from Oxford and Cambridge were keen to serve a curacy. Letters exist from their parents, urging them to come home as the dreadful industrial atmosphere of those days was making these young chaps ill.
There is a strange story involving the obscuring of some carved panels of the high altar reredos. This concealment was carried out in the twentieth century by an incumbent who claimed that the carved devil at our Lord's feet moved and looked at him one morning when he lifted up the elements at the mass. Thankfully these covers were taken down about twenty years ago and the devil is on view to us all.
The Church Council has ambitions to enhance facilities both in the church and in the under-croft. After the organ is refurbished it is hoped to hold concerts and lunchtime recitals.
"All Souls Blackman Lane used to be the most extreme – in my day you’d have to stay bat the altar rail for a very long time if you wanted to receive the chalice. Fr. Hum (who claimed three reasons for his not being a Roman Catholic – his wife and is two daughters) would sigh and eventually bring down the chalice. The Blessed Sacrament was reserved on two places (illegal, even in the Roman Catholic Church and they used the Roman Rite. The current vicar is a woman – Hum must be turning in his grave. “At the golden jubilee celebrations at All Souls, Leeds, in 1930, Burroughs refused to wear a mitre though he consented to wear a cope. He was somewhat disconcerted when the congregation knelt to receive his blessing as he processed to the high altar, and had to be told to bless them by one of his attendant deacons. ‘He stared at the people, meditated a moment and then lifted up his right hand to a boy scout half salute.’”
Leeds and the Oxford Movement : Study of High Church Activity in the Rural Deaneries of Allerton, Armley, Headingley and Whitkirk in the Diocese of Ripon, 1836-1934 – N. Yates
Here are some historical anecdotes:
Lord Grimthorpe, described as a ‘lawyer, mechanician, architect and controvertialist’ managed to see that flying buttresses were positioned inside rather than outside the building, as Gilbert Scott, the architect., had stipulated.
The church was consecrated by both archbishops . At the consecration mass the Archbishop of Canterbury got lost in the service as he stood at the high altar just before the creed. There was an embarrassed silence until a small boy in the choir suddenly called out: 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' and the Archbishop continued!
Grimthorpe was vehemently opposed to any representation of Walter Hook. Legend has it that he defaced a carved head of Walter Hook in the sanctuary. Its replacement remains, looking towards a head of Hook’s wife across the choir.
In its early life All Souls' was a church where aspiring young men from Oxford and Cambridge were keen to serve a curacy. Letters exist from their parents, urging them to come home as the dreadful industrial atmosphere of those days was making these young chaps ill.
There is a strange story involving the obscuring of some carved panels of the high altar reredos. This concealment was carried out in the twentieth century by an incumbent who claimed that the carved devil at our Lord's feet moved and looked at him one morning when he lifted up the elements at the mass. Thankfully these covers were taken down about twenty years ago and the devil is on view to us all.