All Saints Episcopal Church

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This article is about the church in Homewood, for the Southside mission, see All Saints Episcopal Mission.

All Saints' Episcopal Church is a parish church of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, located at 110 West Hawthorne Road in the Edgewood section of Homewood.

The church was organized as a mission in July 1928 during a meeting in a room above the Edgewood Drug Store. It was admitted to the diocese and purchased its present property the following year. The mission was accepted as a Parish in 1934, and erected its first building in 1945.

The 1945 church building was designed by Charles McCauley in the Gothic style, using gray concrete brick with cast concrete window tracery and surrounds. Timber scissor trusses distinguish the interior, which is lit by lancet stained-glass windows commissioned from J. and R. Lamb and designed by Katherine Lamb Tait. A chancel and spire were added in 1954, along with a choir gallery on the west (entrance) wall.

In 1950, the parish established All Saints Day School as a private kindergarten and elementary school.

On April 21, 1988 the roof and interior of the building were lost to a fire. Architect Henry Sprott Long designed the $1.2 million rebuilding, which was completed in August 1989. The remodeling updated the chancel to the full width of the nave and accommodated the choir, which was relocated from its former gallery to a platform behind the altar. A chancel cross made by sculptor Cordray Parker was added in 1992.

A room off the south (liturgical north) side of the chancel was fashioned into the Holy Family Chapel. The first two windows in the Lamb Studios series in the nave (the Annunciation and Visitation) were moved here to accommodate a doorway from the nave to a new cloister. Additional windows depicting the Flight into Egypt and Jesus' boyhood were added to the chapel. They are also by the Lamb Studios as are those of saints and apostles in Ebaugh Hall. The later Lamb windows are visibly different from those by Katherine Lamb Tait.

While serving as the parish's eighth rector, Glenda Curry was elected by the Diocese of Alabama to serve as its twelfth bishop.

Rectors

References

  • Schnorrenberg, John (March 31, 1996) "The Churches of Edgewood". tour guidebook. Birmingham Historical Society
  • Summe, Sheryl Spradling. (2001). Homewood: The Life of a City. Homewood, AL: Friends of the Homewood Public Library.

External links