Former All Saints Pastoral Centre

Image: © Chris Brown Taken: 17 Apr 2018

All Saints Centre remains a striking landmark from M25. First an Anglican convent with buildings by Catholic architects (main buildings Leonard Stokes; chapel Ninian Comper), it was from 1973 a conference and retreat centre for the Catholic Diocese of Westminster, which sold it in 2011. The development company Comer exhibited plans to convert the main building to 30 luxury flats and build 170 new homes west of it (behind in this view) in March 2015 but as far as I can make out, no planning application has yet been submitted. Attempts by London Colney parish council to get first the whole site and then the chapel listed as an asset of community value were both rejected by St Albans council; the chapel is reportedly in poor repair. In the autumn of 2021 the site featured prominently as a location in Series 12 of the Avalon Television comedy challenge series Taskmaster, broadcast on Channel 4. This view was available by scrambling through a roadside ditch with flytipped rubbish.

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