Welcome to the Parish Church of All Saints, Maidstone

Welcome to the Parish Church of All Saints, Maidstone. . As part of our welcome, we have interpretive panels around the Church which explain our Christian heritage and the history of this magnificent building and its contents. Please take time to wander, reflect and enjoy your journey., The History of All Saints Church , A Saxon church existed on or near this site as early as the 7th Century and was dedicated to St Mary. The first known Rector in 1205 was William de Cornhill and in 1207 he gave his manor house in Maidstone as a residence for the Archbishop of Canterbury. On 25 June 1395 Pope Boniface IX gave authorisation for a Collegiate Church to be established in Maidstone. A few weeks later on 2nd August, King Richard 2nd (who was staying at Leeds Castle) signed a licence for Archbishop William Courtenay to establish a College of 24 secular canons in Maidstone and gave him permission to convert St Mary's into a Collegiate Church. St Mary's was demolished and the present Church, dedicated to All Saints, was built. It is believed that the master mason was Henry Yvele, who also designed the nave of Canterbury Cathedral and was considered to be the finest mason in the country., Courtenay, who was a grandson of Edward 1, died only a year later in 1396, before the building was completed: His successor was Archbishop Arundel who oversaw the completion of the Church in about 1405, though the exact date is not known., The building is uniformly built in the early "perpendicular" style of architecture and is virtually unchanged. The Church is mainly built from Kentish ragstone with the doorways and window casings in Caen stone. The Vestry was added in the mid 1800s, the North porch added in 1927 and the wooden spire has been lost. In 1885-86 the architect L. Pearson re-roofed the church, built a new organ chamber and did much refurbishment work., All Saints Church is one of the widest Parish Churches in the Country and its remarkable size is largely due to its function as a Collegiate Church. The stained glass windows in the Church are nearly all Victorian and date from the 1830s. The one exception is a small Tudor window over the North door., The Tower , Tower is on the southwest corner of the Church and is 78 feet (24 m) tall. It can be accessed by a small door within the porch which leads to a spiral staircase. The Tower was formerly topped by an 80 feet (25m) timber and lead spire, which was destroyed by a lightning strike on 2nd November 1730. The timber roof over the bell chamber (which has a modern iron bell-frame) is still the timber base for the original spire, with various reused (and burnt) spire timbers for rafters. In 1669 Samuel Pepys visited Maidstone and climbed to the top of the Tower., The Bells , There are ten bells in the Tower ranging from the lightest the Treble-weighing five cwt./diameter twenty-nine inches to the heaviest the Tenor-weighing thirty-two cwt./diameter 6fty-six inches. All the bells were re-cast in 1957 by John Taylor and Co. of Loughborough., The Porch , Originally the porch had a vaulted roof but this was taken out in about 1558 and replaced with the current wooden roof. On the wall of the porch is a piece of lead salvaged from the spire., The South Door , Notice the small round indents on the outside of this door. These were made by musket shot (round metal balls) fired at it during the Civil War of 1648. General Fairfax was sent to take the town because it supported Charles 1st. 1400 prisoners were kept in the church along with the soldiers and their horses!