All Saints, Ipswich

Above: All Saints early on a Saturday, without the gridlock. The more you look at the tower, the more interesting (or curious) it seems. That buttress, for instance.

Right: Fine brick arcades, with the chancel beyond. Note the flying buttress in what was once the Lady Chapel. The nave altar is just visible on the far right.

Suffolk doesn't have many 19th century churches - or, at least, not many that aren't rebuilds of medieval ones. The best of the new are probably the Anglican Ipswich St Bartholomew and Bury St John, and the Catholic Ipswich St Pancras and Lowestoft Star of the Sea. These are all excellent churches, worthy buildings for parish and county alike.

All Saints, then, is something quite unusual for Suffolk. It is a run of the mill Victorian redbrick church. That it is a run of the mill Lancashire-style redbrick church is probably because the architect was Samuel Wright of Blackpool, who won the 1887 competition, possibly to his own surprise. He won £50 for the effort. The parish was carved out of St Matthew.

Still, its octagonal tower is vaguely suggestive of Suffolk round ones, and the interior of brick arcades and plain windows is undoubtedly impressive. All materials, so it is claimed, were produced in the parish. The single bell was originally intended as the treble of a larger ring.

The removal of pews, and their replacement with a nave altar and chairs, is most successful. In fact, it rarely doesn't work. The parquet marks the line of the old central gangway. If your ancestors got married here, they walked up this.

All Saints sits on that busy bottle-neck on the inner-ring road, Chevallier Street. Lots of people spend a lot of time sitting still in their cars looking at it, so it is a familiar sight.

A plaque above the south door tells us that we are in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and we step inside to an interior that was clearly once Tractarian in nature, but is no longer.

High windows suffuse the gloom with pale light. A central nave altar hosts most services, but the nice lady told me that they still use the chancel for weddings, funerals and the occasional Holy Communion.

All the pews have been replaced with modern chairs, as at Felixstowe St John the Baptist and Kettlebaston.

The clearing of clutter in a church always looks good, and you hope that more churches could follow this good example.

The fine 1890s reredos; designed, as were all the interior furnishings, by Samuel Wright.

The rood screen and pulpit are heavy, and rather ugly I am afraid. But the sombre reredos is a fine period piece; its sobriety is rather out of keeping with the joyful banners that now hang from the brick arcades.

The view up Surrey Street - as intended by Mr Wright.

All Saints, Ipswich, is located on Chevallier Street, to the west of the town centre. Take an 88 up Norwich Road, getting off at the Inkerman public house. Unfortunately, it is kept locked.