This church is the first and finest example in London of the lavishness of decoration and furnishings advocated by the Tractarians. A description from 1888 says, ‘Its interior is more richly decorated than any other church of the Anglican communion in London’. It was built between 1849 and 1859 on the site of the Margaret Chapel, once a nonconformist chapel of Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion, and the first stone was laid by Dr Edward Pusey himself.
Here, in the 1830s, Frederick Oakeley began to adopt the principles of the Oxford Movement already alluded to. All Saints, Margaret Street, was designed by William Butterfield, Anglican architect of nearly 100 Gothic Revival churches. The building has a very tall steeple, 230 feet high, atop a brick tower. The entrance to the church is through a courtyard entered from the street. Inside one finds much rich wood carving, marble Corinthian columns and stained glass. Ceiling frescoes depict the birth and crucifixion of Christ and the court of heaven, showing the saints with Our Lord in the centre. The west window, illustrating the Tree of Jesse, is of particular interest. In the Victorian age this church was attended by large upper-class congregations, predominantly ladies.
This gave rise to the following from the pen of a clerical wit:
In a church that is furnished with mullion and gable, With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, The penitents’ dresses are seal-skin and sable, The odour of sanctity’s Eau de Cologne. But if only could Lucifer flying from Hades Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints, He could say, as he looked at the lords and the ladies, Oh! where is ‘All Sinners’, if this is ‘All Saints’?