The site

Dance's church replaced a medieval one, first recorded in 1120 and built on the same site against the City wall. That northeastern part of the City escaped the Great Fire of 1666 but almost a century later All Hallows was in a seriously decrepit state as can be seen in a view from the east (of about 1750) showing the 'City ditch', in the Guildhall Library (Prints and Maps Department, Record: 376). A site plan in the Guildhall Library shows that in 1765 three additional pieces of land were 'granted by / the City to the parish of Allhallows [sic] on the Wall London' (Manuscripts Department, MS 11/976/3 1767 bundle). One piece was at the west end of the church on what was to be half of the site for the west tower, and there was a narrow sliver of land to the northeast. The overall site was now 405 feet long and varied in width between 15 and 40 feet.

On 1st May 1765, five architects produced their drawings and estimates for the Building Committee and Dance, recently returned from Rome, was selected. The speed with which the selection and commissioning of the architect proceeded may explain why the elder Dance helped to prepare the contract drawings signed on 8 and 23 May 1765 [SM volume 19/18] and [SM volume 19/19] and made the design for a weather vane [SM volume 19/21]. The foundation stone, which is no longer visible, was laid at the northwest corner on 10 July 1765.

Elision

Dance's executed design is for a single-cell church of London stock brick and Portland stone dressings with a simple exterior and an exquisite interior. Inside, engaged and fluted Ionic columns on tall pedestals carry only a frieze with anthemion decoration. Thus, architrave and cornice have been elided from the conventional entablature. While later historians (Findlay, Worsley, Watkin, Bradley) use 'frieze' to describe the single element of the entablature used by Dance which is flat and without the fascias characteristic of the architraves of the Ionic order Summerson preferred 'architrave'. He wrote of All Hallows (1951, p.84) that it 'may justly be called the first strictly Neo-classical building in Britian. It is Neo-classical in its derivation from a Roman Bath prototype and Neo-classical more particularly in the treatment of the order which, above cap level, consists of nothing but an enriched architrave. The omission here of frieze and cornice was a very daring innovation in 1765...Here indeed is the beginning, in England, of that process of omission which Soane, Dance's pupil and friend, was to carry to such extremes.'

Summerson attributes Dance's use of an elided entablature to the French theorist Abbé Laugier's Essai sur l'architecture (1753): 'The entablature is divided in all Orders into architrave, frieze and cornice. Of these three parts only the architrave could and should be used singly whenever there are several stories. The frieze and cornice can only be used jointly and with the architrave.' But Worsley quotes Laugier to argue that he would not have approved of the frieze being used on its own and that Dance got the idea of elision not from the Abbé but by direct observation of ancient Roman buildings.

Soane, who must have discussed this point with Dance, commented in his Royal Academy Lecture III that 'in the early part of my studies, being accustomed to see in books of architecture, the same entablatures in the interior as in the exterior, the deviation shewn [here] ... I could not account for, and therefore, like a young man, supposed it defective; but as soon as I was led to consider the principles of Grecian construction, not only the eye was pleased, but the judgement was satisfied with this example of refined taste' (quoted in Watkin, 1996, p.527). Thus Dance's precedent appears to lie with his observation of Antique buildings where, as Soane explained, 'In the best works of the Greeks where entire columns or parts of columns are used internally, the frieze and cornice are omitted'.

He cites both Greek and Roman examples and in the latter, elision may consist of retaining only the architrave and enriched frieze, or architrave and small cornice, or a small cornice alone. In fact Dance's use of a frieze alone, based on 'the suppression' of those parts of the entablature which can only apply to external decoration', was entirely logical since the function of a cornice is to shed water while an architrave is a load-bearing lintel - neither was required for the engaged columns of the interior of All Hallows.

Whether he was employing a frieze or an architrave, Dance's much-discussed use of an elided entablature serves to emphasise his pioneering Neo-Classicism. However, architectural change usually appears first in the small details and Dance's design can be seen as more Roman than Greek. The interior was derived from the Roman Basilica of Maxentius (or Constantine) though without the aisles; a Roman barrel-vaulted ceiling is pierced in each bay by cross-vaults above lunette windows (Diocletian in the drawings) set high in the walls; and there is a Roman Doric doorway while Tivoli Corinthian columns adorn the cupola.

Other drawings

An interior perspective, drawn on the spot in 1816 to illustrate Soane's Royal Academy Lecture III [SM 18/7/7] emphasises the light cast through the lunette windows that were Dance's modification of the heavier, twin-mullioned windows of the Baths of Diocletian that he had initially proposed in the contract drawing [SM volume 19/19]. Prompted by Dance, Soane used similar lunettes for the Bank Stock Office in the Bank of England in 1791-2.

A further, unfinished interior perspective [SM 18/7/11] also shows the east end though from a viewpoint further west and depicting a different time of day. It is given in the 'List of Soane's Lecture illustrations at the Royal Academy' (Watkin, 1996, p.676) for Lecture III, No.38.

A rough pencil setting-out for an interior perspective of the east end, presumably by Dance, inscribed on the verso 'St All hallows / Lond Wall' is in the Corporation of London Records Office (Surveyor's Miscellaneous Plans 95).

There is in the Guildhall Library what appears to be early set of measured drawings consisting of a ground floor plan, longitudinal section (signed 'B.Storace 1^st October 1806'), and an interior perspective towards the east end without furnishings (Prints & Maps Department Records: 23101, 23100, 367). The section and perspective are certainly in the same hand, that of Brinsley Storace, a pupil in Soane's office, 1804-7. By a different hand, but of about the same date, is a perspective towards the east end with furnishings (Record:366).

Later history

The church furnishings were altered in 1890-91 by Carpenter & Ingelow and then by Sir Arthur Blomfield; and again in 1960-62 by David Nye who restored the church after war damage for use as the chapel and headquarters of the Council for the Care of Churches. After an IRA incident in April 1993, minor damage was repaired and (as intended) the Church was redecorated to its original creamy stone appearance. It is now used by Christian Aid.

LITERATURE. A.S. Walker, 'The Architecture of All Hallows Church', ch.6 of M. Fowler, History of All Hallows Church [1909]; Summerson, 'Soane: The case-history of a personal style'. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 3rd series, LVIII, 1951, pp.83-91; Stroud pp.74-7; Kalman pp.69-76; J. Summerson, 'Soane: the man and the style' in John Soane, [no ed.], 1983, pp.9-23; D.Findlay, All Hallows London Wall: a history and description, 1985; G. Worsely, Classical architecture in Britain: the heroic age, 1995, pp.298-9; D. Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures, Cambridge, 1996; S. Bradley & N. Pevsner, London I, the City of London, 1997, pp.186-8; M. Richardson and M. Stevens (eds), John Soane Architect: master of space and light, catalogue of an exhibition at the Royal Academy, 1999, pp.16, 85.

OTHER SOURCES. Guildhall Library: Prints & Maps and Manuscripts Departments