End of road for 150-yr-old Bangalore Church? – National Herald

Walking into the green campus of the All Saints Church on 1, Hosur Road, Richmond town, Bangalore, which lies at one of the busiest intersections in town, is like stepping into a time machine. Traffic noises fade away, muffled by the leaves and trailing branches of the over 100 trees some over 150 years old that fill the space. A lawn glows green under the sun-dappled shade. The quaint, steeply-gabled, tiled church with rubble stone masonry walls rising just seven feet to meet the roof, the typical arched windows transport you into an earlier century. As you step into the carpeted interiors, the roof, resting on artistically-wrought iron trusses, attracts the eye upwards, the carved teak pews, woodwork, the pipe organ all take us to a time when the world was a calmer, more serene place. The air is filled with birdcalls of dozens of the species, some rare, which live in the precincts. Church records say that the land was gifted by the Maharaja of Mysore, Chamaraja Wodeyar, and later expanded to include space for an orphanage.

It was completed in 1870 by Rev. Samuel Pettigrew who was an important institution builder in Bangalore those days. He was the chaplain at St. Marks Cathedral at the time, and also warden of the Bishop Cotton Boys School. Estimated to cost Rs 10,000, its original design was rejected by the Church Building Society of Madras, as being unsuitable for a church and too small. The present building was then designed by well-known government architect Robert Chisholm, who is famous for pioneering the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture, which incorporates Indo-Islamic decorative and design elements with western styles. But All Saints Church has none of those elements in its design. Two earlier ones submitted by Chisholm were rejected and only the third was accepted. Rev. Pettigrew for his part struggled to collect the funds for its construction. The foundation stone was finally laid down in 1869.

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End of road for 150-yr-old Bangalore Church? - National Herald