All Hallows

London's oldest parish church is All Hallows By the Tower, founded as a convent by Erkenwald, Bishop of London, about 675. Richard the Lionhearted built a chapel in its churchyard; Edward the Confessor gave it a statue of the Virgin. The Great Seal of England was once guarded from William the Conqueror on All Hallows' altar; erring Knights Templar were tried there for heresy in the 14th century, and the headless body of many a wrong-guessing notable was brought there from the nearby Tower of London for burial. In the Great Fire of 1666, Samuel Pepys saw All Hallows saved by Admiral Penn (father of Pennsylvania's William), who gave orders to men of the Navy Yard to blow up the surrounding houses.

Hitler's blitz of 1940 rained down a hotter kind of fire. All that remained of the church at war's end was the crypt, the shell of the tower and the bare stone walls, all lying not a mile from the still intact magnificence of the much newer (1675-1710) St. Paul's. Planners in charge of the rebuilding of London marked off All Hallows as too far gone for restoration.

Power Plant. "Tubby" Clayton did not agree. The Rev. Philip B. Clayton, vicar of All Hallows, chaplain to George VI and to Elizabeth II, is a 71-year-old dynamo with a high-voltage output of devotion, human ingenuity and charm. A World War I chaplain, founder of the British religious organization called Toc H, the organizer of the Winant Volunteers-- a U.S. group of college-age boys and girls who pay their way each year to work among the poor in London's slums--Padre Clayton knew how to get what he wanted. He first established squatter's rights to the shell of All Hallows by moving in a token supply of building materials, then promised to get the church rebuilt without drawing on Britain's scant supplies.

From the U.S. he rounded up contributions of steel, from Australia steam pipes, from Canada floor tiles, from Southern Rhodesia copper for the spire, from New Zealand, Australia and Canada timber for the structure. In addition he raised $222,300 in donations which were added to $339,150 from Britain's War Damage Commission.

Back on Her Feet. One afternoon last week, to a blare of trumpets from the Royal Horse Guards, Queen Mother Elizabeth stepped through a new oak door in an old stone doorway and looked about her at the reborn All Hallows, The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Cullum Welch, was on hand to greet her, and the Bishop of London, Dr. Henry Montgomery Campbell. Thirty of the Winant Volunteers and All Hallows' Assistant Curate John Bassett Frederick, of Cheshire, Conn., stood by while Vicar Clayton escorted the Queen Mother to a chair made from the pulpit door of 1613, and the service of rededication began.

"With the old place back on her feet again," said one Billingsgate porter who had fought to save All Hallows from 1940's fire bombs, "now you really know the war's over."

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