All Saints (New) Church is on Military Road,
immediately east of Canterbury, close to St Gregory the Great. It
is not the first church of that name in the city, All Saints (Old
Church) being its ancient forebear. This new All Saints began life
as the Canterbury Garrison Church of St Alban, constructed
in the 1840s as part of Northgate military barracks for regiments
such as the 9th and 17th Lancers, the 8th Hussars, a battery of the
Royal Horse Artillery, and the East Kent Militia.
Details of services from 1917 show it being used
for worship after Parade Service on Sundays, although it was also
open to the public for all services, which were conducted by the
Reverend A R Witt, MA. The closure of the military barracks left it
vacant, but it was ideally situated in the centre of St Gregory's
parish, so when that was closed and sold to Christ Church College in
1974, the Garrison Church was purchased and renamed All Saints
Church. It opened for services in 1978.
The Jewish Synagogue, St Dunstan's Street
lay on the northern side of St Dunstan's Street, approximately where
the Canterbury West level crossing is today. Jews settled as early as
1730 in Canterbury, and this synagogue was founded in 1762. It stood
for nearly a century, but in December 1846, the congregation assembled
for the last time, before moving to King Street. The building was taken
down in 1858 to allow the railway to run through the street.
The Parish Church of St Dunstan is on the
corner of St Dunstan's Street and London Road. It was one of the many
churches founded by Archbishop Lanfranc (1070-1089), who attached it
to his Priory of St Gregory. In 1174 it formed a stage in the pilgrimage
of Henry II to Thomas Becket's shrine. Henry dismounted at Harbledown,
and walked to the church where he partly stripped and put on the hair
shirt and cloak of the pilgrim, before walking barefoot to the cathedral.
The little Norman church almost certainly became a
place of note for other pilgrims who followed Henry's example and paused
at St Dunstan's before passing into the city. The vicarage was established
and endowed by Archbishop Reynolds in 1322, and two chaplains were maintained
by the Roper family which lived nearby for several centuries, at Place House,
or St Dunstan's Place, which stood opposite the churchyard. Only the old
gateway of the mansion remains.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
is one of the most recent arrivals in the church's 'ward' of Canterbury.
Its spiritual leader is a member of the congregation who has been asked
to serve in this position, under the church's practise of using a voluntary
lay ministry rather than paid clergy. This church is on Forty Acres Road,
close to St Dunstan's Church - a haven for local genealogists as it holds
copies of the registers for births, marriages and deaths.
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