All Saints’ Church, Huntingdon

All Saints’ Church in the pretty, Cambridgeshire market town of Huntingdon, is an attractive but higgledy-piggledy-looking construction in the town’s centre. The official listing from Historic England helps us to understand why:

A C12 or earlier church that has been wholly rebuilt. The S tower arch is C13, and the tower itself is late C14. The rest of the church was rebuilt in the late C15 and early C16. The tower was repaired in brick probably in the C17. By the late C18 it had galleries, but these were removed during the restoration in 1859 to designs by George Gilbert Scott. The NE organ chamber and vestry were also added at this time. There was extensive restoration in the 1950s by Harold Doe. The base of the tower was converted to a kitchen in 1990.

It seems that each generation to possess this church left its stamp upon it, shaping it, re-shaping it, transforming it, improving it, restoring it. As I prepared to lead a brief and general overview on the topic of the Reformation at one of our mid-week meetings this month, my final slide simply stated 'Constant Reformation'. This refers to the need for each generation to keep reforming and reshaping the church of which they are part. This refers not to its towers and window frames, but its theology and practice. We must keep cutting back the overgrowth and refer back to the simplicity of God’s pure word.

Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.”…So Shaphan the scribe went to the king, bringing the king word, saying, “Your servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of those who do the work, who oversee the house of the Lord.” Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king….Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.
2 Kings 22, NKJV