All Saints Church, Kingston upon Thames

All Saints Church is the historic parish church of Kingston upon Thames, in south-west London, standing between the ancient Market Place and the modern shopping centre. It is a building of the very first importance in English history, for Kingston was the coronation place of the kings of Wessex and England in the tenth century, and All Saints stands on the site where seven Saxon kings were crowned. The only Grade I listed building in Kingston, it is a fine medieval church on a site of royal and religious significance reaching back more than a thousand years.

Kingston's importance in the Anglo-Saxon age was great. A church sprang up here in Saxon times, and in 838 Egbert, King of Wessex, held a great council at Kingston. In the following century the town became the place where the kings of the newly united England were crowned: Edward the Elder was crowned here in 900, and his son Æthelstan — often regarded as the first king of all England — in 925, followed by Edmund I in 940, Eadred in 946, Eadwig in 955, Edward the Martyr in 975, and finally Æthelred the Unready, crowned by Bishop Oswald of Worcester in 978. The coronations are traditionally associated with the Coronation Stone, an ancient block of stone said to have been used in the ceremonies, which survives in Kingston and is preserved nearby as one of the town's greatest treasures. Outside the south door of the present church, some outlines marked by stones are all that remain of the Saxon church and the chapel of St Mary, where these royal events took place.

The present church was begun in 1120, under the orders of King Henry I, and has been developed and enlarged over the centuries since. It is a cruciform building with a central tower and a four-bay nave, with a Perpendicular clerestory, choir, north and south aisles, transepts and chapels, built of flint with stone dressings and crowned with a parapet of stone battlements. The Norman nave was widened in the fourteenth century, and in the fifteenth century the chancel and the chapels of the Holy Trinity to the north and St James to the south were added. The original tall wooden spire on the tower was struck by lightning and largely destroyed, and the church has been repaired and restored over the generations, but it retains its medieval character and much fine work.

The church preserves many monuments and treasures, including memorial brasses and the tombs of local worthies, recording the long history of the town it has served. As the coronation church of the Saxon kings and the parish church of a royal borough, All Saints holds a unique place in the story of England — a place where the very making of the English kingdom was solemnised.

Today All Saints continues as a thriving Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Southwark, at the heart of Kingston. Together with St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist at Kingston Vale, it forms a team of churches serving the residents, businesses, schools and the university of the town, with a busy round of worship, music and community life. Standing amid the bustle of one of London's liveliest town centres, it remains both a working church and a monument to the deep history of the place.

The church stands between the Market Place and the shopping centre in the centre of Kingston upon Thames, on the bank of the River Thames in south-west London. The ancient Market Place with its old Guildhall, the Coronation Stone, the riverside and its bridge, the Rose Theatre, the shops and restaurants of the town centre, and Kingston University all lie close by, with the great royal parks of Richmond and Bushy, Hampton Court Palace, and the wider attractions of south-west London and Surrey within easy reach.

From the great council of King Egbert in 838 and the coronations of seven Saxon kings in the tenth century, through the building of the present church under Henry I in 1120 and its medieval enlargements, All Saints Church gathers more than a thousand years of English history into one building. The only Grade I listed building in Kingston and the coronation church of the kings of England, it remains the living parish church of the royal borough — one of the most historic churches in the land.