Qualla: All Saints' Church, Nottingham

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. In 1830 cholera came to Nottingham. The wealthier families fled the old crowded centre of the city for higher ground, settling on a new suburb above the Sandfield - a green strip on the northern edge of town where the air was thought to be safer. Within thirty years they needed a church. All Saints' was the answer: a Gothic Revival nave consecrated in 1864 with money from a single philanthropist, a 175-foot broach spire, and ten bells cast in Loughborough. The cholera epidemic that built the parish has been gone for a century and a half. The bells nearly stopped ringing in 2019, defeated by pigeon droppings.

Image: Simon Cobb | CC0

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: Built by One Man

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Superhasn at English Wikipedia, Public domain. William Windley, a Nottingham JP and silk manufacturer, paid for the church himself. The building alone cost about £10,000; with the parsonage and the church school added, his total bill came to roughly £25,000 - a sum that would buy several large London houses at the time. He co...

Image: Superhasn at English Wikipedia | Public domain

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: Consecration Day

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. On 3 November 1864 the church was consecrated. The Right Reverend John Jackson, Bishop of Lincoln, came up to perform the service - the new Diocese of Nottingham would not be created for another fourteen years. The 800-seat church was packed: 1,200 people crammed in. The choir of...

Image: Simon Cobb | CC0

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: From Wealthy Suburb to Urban Priority Area

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Abbott, CC BY-SA 2.0. The wealthy suburb did not stay wealthy. The Industrial Revolution swallowed the green spaces between All Saints' Parish and the old city centre; by the late nineteenth century the parish was indistinguishable from the urban grid around it. The Second World War accelerated the de...

Image: Andrew Abbott | CC BY-SA 2.0

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: The Bells Stop, the Bells Return

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit shining.darkness, CC BY 2.0. On 19 May 2019, ringers at All Saints' fell silent. Damage to the spire had allowed pigeons into the bell tower, and the floor above the bells had rotted from years of accumulated guano. About 2.2 tons of bird waste was eventually removed during the restoration that followed. The...

Image: shining.darkness | CC BY 2.0

All Saints' Church, Nottingham: Survival

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Lally, CC BY-SA 2.0. There is no permanent vicar now and no regular organist; a team of musicians under Peter Siepmann, the Director of Music, rotates between All Saints' and St Peter's. Sunday services continue. The parish is exploring shared uses for the building - the kind of arrangement that Engl...

Image: David Lally | CC BY-SA 2.0