All Saints' Church, Dale Abbey

All Saints’ Church in the parish of Dale Abbey in Derbyshire is rather peculiar. Apart from its venerable age (twelfth century) and its fine state of preservation with extant wall paintings, there are two features which justify my initial sentence. The first is its size. At only 26 by 25 feet, it is one of the smallest parish churches in the country. The second is that, like a great many dwellings dating from the 1920s and 30s, it is semi-detached.

The building with which it shares a wall is now a pleasant, private house. It may once, however, have served as the infirmary of Dale Abbey, allowing the sick and dying to come, or be brought, into the chapel and partake of spiritual comfort. Between then and now, however, it was the Blue Bell Inn. So small is All Saints' that the parson would change into his vestments behind the bar, and a now blocked-up door from the gallery into the house enabled worshippers to nip through and procure some liquid refreshment during divine service. That door was said to lead from ‘salvation to damnation’.

We live in days of poor church attendance, but it is still true that even church-goers and pious devotees are as much in danger of hell as the outwardly wicked and obviously ungodly. It is not fonts and churches which save; neither is it baptisms, communions and conventions. It is Jesus Christ Himself. Even church folk are but a door’s width from hell, and the religious and sanctimonious shall go there except Christ Jesus bore their sin upon the cross.