All Saints for All People: 150 Years of All Saints Clifton by John Hudson

A church in the Bristol suburbs is 150 years old; a common enough occurrence, yet the story of All Saints, Clifton is anything but simple and straightforward. A product of the High Church Oxford Movement, it came into being at a time when reaction against ‘ritualism’ was growing ever more strident and threatening, and it was through sheer passion and commitment that it persevered to become a much-loved centre of Anglo-Catholicism for people from well beyond the parish boundaries.

The Luftwaffe’s devastating raid on Bristol on December 2, 1940 and its move to more makeshift premises brought an end to that, and by the time the spectacular new All Saints was taking shape in the late 1960s the form of worship it had helped to pioneer had become so widespread that it turned happily towards catering for the more local community – while committing itself, as it always had done, to good causes near and far.

More than one church building, then – but through the years there has been just one church family, which has remained true to the original intention of the founders while constantly interpreting that brief in a way fitting to the world into which it commits itself at every service to go out and spread the word.

96 pages, paperback

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