Church of All Saints

All Saints’ Church stands in Gosforth, a northern suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is an Anglican parish church built in the late 19th century and consecrated in 1887. The church replaced an earlier Saxon foundation at St Nicholas and was designed by diocesan architect Robert J. Johnson in Gothic Revival style. Its tower, added in 1896, holds a ring of ten bells. Inside, Victorian wood carvings by Ralph Hedley, an organ by Harrison & Harrison and stained glass windows show saints through the ages. Nikolaus Pevsner called it a good example of a large late Victorian church and it is now Grade II listed. The church grew from the needs of a fast-growing community. In the 19th century the parish population rose from just over a thousand to about six thousand as farming, mining and trading expanded west of the Great North Road. A committee led by mining engineer William Cochrane planned the new building after the vicar, the Revd Frederick Wood Bindley, restored the old church. Newspapers praised the finished church as one of the finest modern churches in northern England. All Saints later became the mother church for four more churches in Gosforth. Beside the church is an Edwardian hall, a garden of remembrance and a church green. The interior shows Gothic Revival detail with carved woodwork, an organ and windows that tell the story of the saints. The tower’s bells still sound over Gosforth. The church remains a centre for local worship and memory, surrounded by the quiet green space that belongs to it.