Qualla: All Saints' Church, Falmouth

All Saints' Church, Falmouth: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lambert, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1887 the future King Edward VII, then still Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, laid a foundation stone at the edge of Falmouth. Three years later, on 17 April 1890, a parish church rose from it - the design of John Dando Sedding, one of the more inventive architects of the late Gothic Revival. The consecration itself made a small piece of ecclesiastical curiosity: George Wilkinson, the Bishop of Truro, was too ill to officiate, so Herbert Bree, Bishop of Barbados, stepped in. A Cornish church was consecrated by the bishop of a Caribbean island.

Image: Lambert | CC BY-SA 2.0

All Saints' Church, Falmouth: Sedding and Then Sedding

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. John Dando Sedding designed All Saints in the Gothic Revival style with narrow aisles and a great east window of five lancets. He also designed many of its fittings: the oak choir stalls carved by Trask and Co., and the Devon marble font. The interior is dense with the careful de...

Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

All Saints' Church, Falmouth: Hele and Co., Plymouth, 1894

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrewrabbott (talk), Public domain. The organ was installed in 1894 by Hele and Co. of Plymouth at a cost of £750. A contemporary article in the Royal Cornwall Gazette praised the oak case 'enhanced by fine carving, adding much to the beauty of the chancel' and went further - the instrument was, the writer claimed,...

Image: Andrewrabbott (talk) | Public domain

All Saints' Church, Falmouth: Roger Yates and the Willis Sound

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Green from Bradford, CC BY 2.0. In 1950 the organ came under the hands of Roger Yates of Michaelstow, who had trained with Henry Willis III of the famous Willis organ-building dynasty. Yates' work at All Saints is regarded today as some of the finest in Cornwall. He cleaned the pipework, added a Swell Tremolo a...

Image: Tim Green from Bradford | CC BY 2.0

All Saints' Church, Falmouth: A Quiet Cornish Parish

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrewrabbott (talk), Public domain. Beyond the organ, All Saints is the kind of parish church that English Anglicanism does well. The vicars' list runs unbroken from Thomas Taylor in 1890 to Bill Stuart-White, who arrived in May 2018. Canon Clifford William George Wood served for nearly forty years - 1924 to 1963 -...

Image: Andrewrabbott (talk) | Public domain