Paul Waterhouse was the architect who designed most of All Saints'; the chancel was done years earlier by Pearson of Chester, but Waterhouse ignored that and added the nave in his usual style. This style was not intended for churches - apart from All Saints' and a convent in Oxford, he never attempted a religious building, and is best known for university science laboratories, banks and Prudential Insurance offices.
Paul Waterhouse was born in 1861 and died in 1924 soon after his work on All Saints'. He was the son of the famous architect Alfred Waterhouse who designed the National History Museum in South Kensington and much else. After Eton and Balliol and R.I.B.A. architectural training, Paul Waterhouse joined his father's firm becoming a partner in 1891. As well as designing vast numbers of buildings he was active in architectural politics, uniting various factions by his conciliatory and diplomatic skills. He was also a great speaker, being ''witty, elegant and unexpected', all three of which adjectives might apply to his buildings. He married a daughter of Sir Reginald Palgrave, while his sister married Robert Bridges, the poet laureate, and he was closely related to John William Waterhouse, the not very pre-Raphaelite painter known for his studies of languid maidens contemplating lilies.
That he was selected for All Saints' was due to the Younger family. He rebuilt Mount Melville for James Younger, and then designed the Younger Hall on North Street. This building has been called the ugliest building in any British university, but that was before university expansion led to building uglier and uglier, and the Younger hall was left out of the running. In fact it is not that bad; the lower part is Waterhouse's typical 'art deco' and in any of a dozen cities it would be instantly recognisable as a Prudential Insurance Office. The top half is mock Egyptian and if the thing was a Las Vegas casino it would be quite highly regarded. Inside it is unsuitable for its purpose, as Sir James Irvine noted at the time, but it has a certain grandeur with its various sets of overlapping half-circles, which are also found in All Saints'.
The interior of All Saints' is typical Waterhouse, with the half windows and barrel vaulting suggesting endless further wonders, and then there are the pillars. Waterhouse could not resist fat little pillars looking pleased with themselves but doing nothing else. His Prudential building in Dunfermline has them on the outside, with the usual art deco windows and trimming, but All Saints' has them on the inside. The two on the grille between the church and the chapel are fat and complacent; the two pairs in the baptistery are tall and thin, but they only support a half circle which is there to justify the pillars.
Waterhouse's half of the building would clash with the Pearson half if the junction had not been eased by the hanging cross, the work of the sculpture Nathaniel Hitch. And the halves would have been out of proportion had not Hitch carved a spire behind the high altar which makes that half of the church seem narrower and taller than it would otherwise appear. And that spire is balanced by another, less high and heavier, on the font - though you can see both at the same time, with eyes on the back of your head. This may suggest that Waterhouse's design was faulty until saved by the artistic genius of Hitch, but Waterhouse was in charge and he must have called in Hitch and told him roughly what to do. It was a difficult assignment but it was executed brilliantly.
Article by: Gavin White