All Saints' Church

All Saints' Church in Petersham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is one of the most unusual churches in London — a richly built Edwardian church that was never consecrated, that became famous as a recording studio where Luciano Pavarotti made one of his best-selling albums, and that is today a private house complete with a swimming pool. A Grade II listed building on Bute Avenue, it stands as a striking monument to Edwardian ambition and to the changing fortunes of churches in the modern age, in one of the most beautiful riverside villages near London.

The church was commissioned in 1899 by Rachel Laetitia Warde, a wealthy local woman, to serve the suburban expansion of Petersham that was then expected — and, using funds from his estate, as a memorial to her father, Samuel Walker, who had died the previous year. She also commissioned an accompanying church hall and institute, as a memorial to her aunt Ellen, the frieze above its entrance still bearing the inscription "AD 1900. Ellen Walker. Thy Kingdom Come. Memorial Church Room." The church was designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly as an ambitious and richly decorated building, and was erected, together with its hall, in the grounds of Bute House — once the residence of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, the Prime Minister of King George III, which was demolished in 1908.

Mrs Warde died in 1906, three years before the project was finished, and it was completed by her son Lionel. The foundation stone had been laid in November 1901, and the church was finally dedicated by the Bishop of Kingston in April 1909. But it was never consecrated, for the anticipated growth in Petersham's population never took place — the village remained a small and select community rather than the expanding suburb its founders had imagined. The grand church thus found itself without a congregation to fill it. It was used only occasionally by the parish and, at times, by the Greek Orthodox Church; it continued to be used for weddings until 1981, but ceased to be used as a church altogether in 1986.

The building's later history is extraordinary. During the Second World War it was requisitioned and used as a radar and anti-aircraft command post. Its fine acoustics later made it a sought-after recording studio: in January 1976 Luciano Pavarotti recorded his best-selling album O Holy Night here, and many other distinguished musicians made recordings in the church, among them the bass Sergei Leiferkus, the conductor Christopher Hogwood with the Academy of Ancient Music, and members of the Ashkenazy family. The church was also used as a filming location. Around 1996 the Anglican Diocese of Southwark sold the building, and it has since been converted into a private residence, known as All Saints House, complete with an indoor swimming pool, a jacuzzi and a steam room — a remarkable transformation for a building that was raised as a place of worship. The church hall, meanwhile, served as Petersham's village hall into the twenty-first century.

The story of All Saints', Petersham, is in many ways a parable of the changing place of churches in modern Britain: a building raised in confident expectation of growth that never came, never consecrated, and in the end put to entirely secular use. Yet its Grade II listing recognises its architectural quality, and its place in musical history — as the church where Pavarotti recorded — gives it a lasting fame quite different from that of an ordinary parish church.

The building stands in Petersham, a small and exceptionally beautiful village on the River Thames between Richmond and Ham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The famous view from Richmond Hill over the Thames and Petersham Meadows — the only view in England protected by an Act of Parliament, and painted by Turner — looks down over the village; the great Royal Park of Richmond, the seventeenth-century Ham House nearby, the riverside walks and the elegant streets of Richmond are all close at hand, in one of the loveliest corners of the Thames valley.

From its building as an Edwardian memorial church in expectation of a suburb that never grew, through its years unconsecrated and little used, its wartime service and its fame as the recording studio where Pavarotti made O Holy Night, to its conversion into a private house, All Saints' Church gathers a singular history into one building. A Grade II listed former church on the Thames at Petersham, it remains a striking monument to Edwardian ambition — and one of the most unusual former churches in all of London.