Title:
CHELMSFORD, All Saints
Level: Category
Parish Records
Level: Fonds
CHELMSFORD, All Saints
Scope and Content:
This introduction is based partly on A.C. Edwards's booklet All Saints Chelmsford. A History [Chelmsford 1979], of which there is a copy in the Essex Record Office library.

All Saints, Chelmsford, originated in 1879 as a mission of the parish - later cathedral - church of St Mary, Chelmsford, held in a room in Compasses Row. The mission room was refurbished in 1896 and replaced in 1905 by an iron mission church, built on the corner of Broomfield Road and Stanhope Terrace and bearing the name All Saints Church for the first time (see D/P 138/28/11). It appears as such on Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 Essex New Series sheet 54.10, revised in 1919.

The Chelmsford Diocesan Chronicle of Jan. 1929 reported (p. 15) that the Church Council of Chelmsford Cathedral had accepted a tender 'for the erection of a Mission Hall on the Boarded Barns Estate', developed to the west of the existing church of All Saints. A temporary church in King's Road, designed by Mr. G. J. Harknett and built by G.J. Hawkes and Sons at a cost of £1,630, was dedicated by the Bishop of Chelmsford on 2 Oct. 1929 (Essex Chronicle 4 Oct. 1929, p. 6; see also D/P 138/28/11, 12). This was used both for services and for meetings, and by 1935 at the latest the old church in the Broomfield Road had become a Gospel Hall (Kelly's Directory of Chelmsford 1935-1936). It is now (1997) Broomfield Road Evangelical Church.

In 1930 the mission district of All Saints became part of the new parish of The Ascension, Chelmsford (formed out of the parishes of Chelmsford, Broomfield and Writtle), with All Saints now acting as a mission church of St Peter's. In 1958 All Saints became a conventional district, with its own fixed boundaries. A fully separate ecclesiastical district of All Saints was formed in 1962 out of the northern part of the parish of The Ascension and a detached part of the parish of Writtle (D/CPc 398). In 1967 the parish was enlarged by the addition of the Woodhall estate.

The church in King's Road was extended in 1959 (D/P 607/1/10) and replaced in 1970 by a new church on an adjoining site (D/P 607/1/13, 607/6/1). The former church remained in use (1997) as a church hall ('The Barrow Room'). St Michael's church centre, Woodhall Road, was opened in 1971.

The church of All Saints was dis-used in 2013, and the benefice and parish of All Saints were later united with The Ascension, Chelmsford, the united parish being named The Ascension with All Saints, Chelmsford.
Related Unit of Description:
For a photograph of the laying of the foundation stone of the church, see Essex Weekly News, 19 September 1969, p. 3. For records of The Ascension with All Saints, Chelmsford, see D/P 629.