Bampfylde Road, Torquay, Devon, UK.

All material copyright 2006
PCC. of All Saints Torre, Torbay

Parish Priest - Fr. Roger Shambrook SSC.
Tel +441 803 328865
Domestic UK. 01803 328865.

Open during Service times.
At other times by arrangement
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The building of Belgravia, the area around Lucius Street, Torquay around 1865 meant that the church of St.Saviour on Tor Church Road was too small for the developing parish.

By 1867 the matter was urgent and the then vicar, Fr.Harris, decided to build a new church on the site of the present All Saints on the corner of Bampfylde and Belgrave Road.
A road for carriages was cut "across the Avenue fields to continue Lucius Street" and a wooden church with an iron roof was consecrated on October 31st.1867. It was a plain building with a bell, undecorated and holding about 600 people.
The church was to have have stayed up for 7 years, but it finally was there for 18, leaking terribly in rain and with the noise on the roof often meaning that services were cancelled.

In 1879 Fr.Edward Prince commissioned John Pearson, architect of Truro Cathedral, to plan the new church.The estimated cost was £8000, so large an amount that it was decided to build it in sections.
The first foundation stone, of two, was laid and on January 27th. 1886 the east end (chancel) and the centre (nave) were opened. On April 27th. 1889 the second foundation stone was laid to mark the start of the final building work .Agatha Christie's father gave much of the money to build the new church and she was baptised in it. She lived only a few minutes away so that she worshipped in All Saints from an early age and used the font in one of her early stories. Just up the road was the chemist shop where she studied poisons while working as a "Saturday girl".