History

There has been a church based on this site in Fulham for over 900 years. The building is situated just outside of Bishop’s park and the moated scheduled ancient monument site of Fulham Palace, and  Grade 1 listed building on Metropolitan Open Land  overlooking the River Thames. Today it is a well known landmark in its position on the north side of Putney Bridge, as people cross the river into central London or watch the start of the annual University Boat Race. 

In previous centuries it provided accommodation for the first school in Fulham and its graveyard is a place of pilgrimage and solace for generations of families, including Bishops of London who lie buried here.  The story of Fulham, its early church and particularly its long and intimate association with the Bishops of London as Lords of the Manor is an interesting one.

Anglo Saxon Period

The area of modern Fulham may well have been settled in prehistoric or Romano British times as artefacts in the Fulham Palace museum indicate, although the site itself was most likely never very densely wooded.  The soil was however rich and extremely fertile due to periodic flooding from the river thus offering opportunities for crops, and eventually orchards and market gardens.

Nevertheless, after the coming of the Anglo Saxons in the still very primitive period of the early eighth century, this site seems, for whatever reason or chance, to have been made the centre of an extensive temporal lordship or ‘estate’ of the Bishops of London.

The seventeenth century James manuscript in the St. Paul’s Cathedral archives quotes, presumably from an old cartulary no longer extant, the text of a charter datable to about 704 to 705 by which a certain Bishop Tyrhtilus sold the lordship of “Fulanham” with the consent of Sigehard, king of the East Saxons, and Coenred, king of the Mercians, to Waldhere, Bishop of London.  This is the first occasion on which a Mercian King seems to have exercised jurisdiction in Middlesex.  We can only conjecture as to what the area and buildings on the site were like.

Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

No church is mentioned in the particulars of the manor in the William I Domesday Book.  This in itself has no special significance, since the Middlesex folios of the Domesday Book do not list churches among manorial possessions, but neither are there any other indications that a church existed at that time.

Subsequent to the Domesday Book there are no written records until the thirteenth century, so it is not known when the parish church first came into existence.  Neither is there any evidence of a parish priest until a record of a named rector of Fulham in 1242 having been presented by Henry III.  According to John Norden, Henry III often “lay” at Fulham Palace.  This should indicate the presence of a church building.

During the nineteenth century rebuilding, evidence was found indicating the existence of an earlier structure, including many re used stones and, in particular, one which had formed the bottom of the shafting of a window jamb in the Early English style thus was probably of about the thirteenth century. There is a possibility that the earlier construction was destroyed in 1381 during the Peasant’s Revolt,  when records at Fulham Palace were destroyed, and their was an active leader in Fulham called John Pecce de Fulham boteman who was one of those excepted from the general pardon of Richard II.

Fourteenth Century

In a deed of 1307, a property was referred to as lying “between the mill ditch and the parson’s garden”, which may refer to the church site.  There was a water mill close by the riverside in later medieval times.

The grant was made at a Court General held on 12 December, 1392, in the reign of Richard II, and Fèret’s Fulham Old and New, 3 vols 1900 translation of the Latin text reads as follows:-

 “The Lord grants to John Hunt one garden called Godeyereshauyll near the churchyard of Fulham, reserving to the Lord and his successors one way in length from the gate of the churchyard aforesaid to the footbridge beyond the great ditch of the Lord Bishop there and in breadth xii feet the which said garden called Godeyerhauyll has been a long while in the bands of the said Lord and of his predecessors, as by the Rolls of this Manor will appear, to hold by the rod according to the custom.”

The rectory of Fulham early became a sinecure, without spiritual duties and usually combined with some other preferment, the rector for the time being appointed a vicar. The first known vicar is referred to in 1320.  By the end of the fourteenth century, the rectory or “parsonage house” was in what became the hamlet of Parson’s Greens; the name ‘Parson’s Green” is first found in 1391, and the rectory house is referred to in 1401.

Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The church tower, which has been restored several times, is built of Kent ragstone in the Perpendicular style and, from a petition presented in 1440 to Henry VI and subsequently granted, is known to have been under construction in that year.  A Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in London expresses the view that the lower part of the tower was probably of the previous century, pointing out that the tower arch is two centred and of two moulded orders, the outer being continuous and the inner raised on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases.  The original entrance to the stair turret with moulded jambs and two-centred head in the south west angle and the rear arch of the west doorway also appears to be original.  It is concluded that the lower part of the tower was left for a time unfinished before it was completed in the Perpendicular style.  The area at the base of the tower saw one of the earliest schools in Fulham.

The dedication of the church to All Saints is first documented in the year 1445.

Except for the tower, the present fabric of All Saints Fulham is of the late Victorian era, though it retains many interesting monuments, fully described by Fèret, preserved from the former church.  A few of the most notable ones include the following.  In the south aisle is a Flemish brass of 1529, a memorial to Margaret Svanders.  It seems likely to have been buried during the Civil War and was not rediscovered until 1770; a small stone tablet, surmounted by a skull, with a Latin epitaph to the memory of Sir William Butts, d. 1545, chief physician to Henry VIII; and a tombstone to the memory of William Carlos whose father hid Prince Charles in an oak tree at Boscobel.

The church has three fonts.  An early reference to a font is recorded in 1549, but this was lost (possibly hid during the Civil War) until the church was rebuilt in 1880.  This year is also the first time that five great bells and a little bell are mentioned.

Seventeenth Century

Another octagonal font was presented in 1622 by Mr Thomas Hill churchwarden.  Yet a third, possibly dating from the twelfth century, was discovered within the environs of the church and presently stands in the churchyard.

With the help of funds from Dr Edwardes, 1630 saw the erection of a school room for the village children and a vestry over the church porch.

The rectory and vicarage continued to be separate benefices until 1633 but the office of rector now no longer exists.

The first reference to a clock is in 1637 when the clock winder is paid for the year.  Over the years there has been much work on the clock and it has been replaced a couple of times.

The Civil War, begun in 1642, had many connections with the surrounding area.  The Parliamentary forces used the church to stable horses; the Palace was acquired by a Colonel Harvey; and Cromwell’s family ran a brewery in Wandsworth.  The "Levellers" met and the "Putney debates" were held at All Saints ‘sister church’ over the bridge, St. Mary’s Putney, in 1647.

Fulham Church has had bells for many centuries and the clock installed in 1883 strikes the “Cambridge” quarters on the fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth bells.  Fèret says that in the old days up to the mid seventeenth century, a curfew used to be rung at 8.00 pm and also an early morning bell at 5.00 am.  The bells were recast in 1652.

Eighteenth Century

The main body of the church has been a good deal altered and enlarged from time to time.  No part of its surviving fabric seems likely to be older than the fifteenth century.  For many years the church had galleries in the north and south aisles and at the west end.

The most notable feature of the church is the fine peal of ten bells, which has long been famed as having a particularly sweet tone.  In 1729 six old bells were recast, and two more were added (hence the Eight Bells pub on the High Street).  Two additional bells were obtained in 1746, making a total of ten, though these two were exchanged for two others in l760.  They are pitched to E the same as at Magdalene College Oxford

An organ was installed by Benjamin Jordan in 1732, but was taken down when the church was rebuilt.  Prior to that, there had been only a mention of two broken organs in an inventory of 1549 and nothing in the churchwardens’ records dating from 1625.

In 1770 the Church was completely overhauled at a cost of £1002.19s.

Nineteenth Century

Before 1845, as can be seen from many old paintings and prints, the tower was surmounted by a picturesque octagonal wooden spire enclosing the flagstaff and was popularly known as the ‘pepper box’.  This was eventually removed because it was considered to be ‘incongruous’.

The fifteenth century church had a low roof, ugly gallery and small windows and flooded regularly as there was no river embankment.  The church was enlarged in 1840 but, due to difficulties encountered, the improvements only lasted forty years, before it was decided to rebuild.  The old church was eventually closed on 18 April 1880 and demolished with the exception of the tower.  The floor level was raised three feet and the former east window of the church, the gift of Bishop Blomfield in 1840, was re erected in the south chancel chapel of the new church.

The organ was reconstructed in 1865 and the keyboard curtailed from GG to CC.  This was itself reconstructed by J.W. Walker & Sons after the rebuilding of the church and subsequently enlarged and improved a number of times, including in 1894 by Hill & Sons.

The present large church was designed in the Perpendicular style by Sir Arthur Blomfield, the son of Bishop Blomfield.  It was consecrated by Bishop Jackson on 9 July 1881, and is extremely good for its period. It also lends itself well to floodlighting at night.

Twentieth Century

The church tower has been several times restored, most recently in 1966 to 1967.

In 1999 glass doors, engraved with the inscription “Blessed are the peacemakers”, were installed at the west door.  Passers by can now see through into the church and many step in to enjoy the peace, pray, light a candle or participate in worship.  A modern bronze sculpture ‘Mother and Child’ by Helen Sinclair was commissioned around the same time.

Into the Twenty First Century

Significant changes are being planned for the church building in the near future but there is still vital work required to keep the building in sound condition.  Priorities include repairs to the Lady Chapel, organ, roof and guttering.  Consideration will also be given to re hanging the bells and overhauling the clock.  The organ itself had a major overhaul in 2001 and refinements continue.

The Lady chapel was glassed in in 2009, following a bequest from Evelyn Gurry, a local primary school teacher, providing a quiet, flexible easily heated space

There are many fine monuments and stained glass windows in the church, but these are best dealt with in separate papers; however limited details and photographs of sculptures associated with the church do appear on the website for London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham here and and Feret’s Fulham Old and New, which can be seen at the Boroughs’ archives dept, or purchased on CD from Archives CD books.