All Saints' Church in Lund

Attraction about ½ hour
free entrance When the construction of All Saints´ Church (Allhelgonakyrkan) began in 1887, based on drawings made by the Cathedral architect Helgo Zettervall, it was the first church to be built in Lund since the Middle Ages. The church was inaugurated on All Saints' Day, November 1, 1891, and is very grandiose and beautiful.

The establishment of the church

The population in Lund growth rapidly during the 1800s, which meant that the Cathedral was no longer enough. In 1863, Bishop Johan Henrik Thomander urged the parish to either build a new church or take other actions, so everyone had the opportunity to participate in the High Mass. The Sunday service in the Cathedral was therefore held twice.

All Saints' Church and its 72-metre-high tower. In 1866, a meeting was convened due to 20 important men in the city wrote a letter saying they wanted to start building a new church as soon as possible. But, the rebuilding of the Cathedral, which began in 1868, left the issue unresolved and the question was raised again at a new church meeting in 1876. The Cathedral architect Helgo Zettervall was commissioned to produce drawings for a church with room for about 2,000 people.

The drawings were completed in 1877. The city architect August Bernhard Jakobsson wanted the church to be placed so it was in line with Saint Laurentii Street (Sankt Laurentiigatan) instead of in an east-west direction. The placement was approved by a church meeting in 1882, but was appealed by the book printer Håkan Ohlsson, who was supported by another church meeting. Therefore, when the church began to be built in 1887, it was placed as usual in exactly an east-west direction.

Church exterior

The church is built in neo-Gothic style, which was the present high church style at the time. The facades are built in red machine-made bricks from Börringe Brickyard in Svedala, with black bricks in every fourth row. In the base, two rows of red bricks have been alternated with two rows of black bricks. The tower is 72 meters high and built with refractory bricks. The octagonal roof is covered with copper. The main entrance gates were re-made in 1934, in copper, according to drawings by the architect John Anchert.

The church was provided with a transept, or transverse, on each side of the tower, and a slightly lower transept on each side of the chancel. Along the long sides of the church, there are buttresses with a water thrower in the shape of a dragon at the top. The long sides are also divided into two floors with smaller windows in the lower part and larger windows in the upper part. The church is three-aisled, and the nave and transepts are covered by high gable roofs, patterned with black and white slate, while the side aisles have flat, sheet metal-clad pulpit roofs.

The building committee was not satisfied with the water throwers, so Helgo Zettervall was asked install downpipes, but he thought it was against all custom with downpipes on a Gothic church. Later, downpipes were put up anyway and they are still there today.

Church interior

The inner gates between the entrance and the nave.	The beautiful nave.

Devil as a lamp. Inside, the walls are built with three layers of red bricks, alternated with two rows of black bricks and one row of yellow bricks. The floor has a pattern of yellow circles on a black background, and red four-leaf clovers where the circles intersect. The polished granite columns carrying the side aisles galleries have consoles shaped like devils with lamps in their mouths. The interior is made of oak with elements of blue, red and gold. In the vaults, the slats are made of red bricks, while the vault coats are painted white with sprinkled ornaments and borders in blue and red at the edges.

In the apse, the vaults are dark blue sprinkled with stars. The apse is also surrounded by a low passage with a sacristy. The stained-glass windows were designed by Svante Thulin and manufactured by Tiroler Glasmalerei & Kathedralen-Glashütte in Innsbruck.

Risk for the Church to be demolished

In 1962, the Cathedral parish was divided and the All-Saints’ Parish was formed. In the 1990s, the All-Saints´ church was in such poor condition that it was threatened to be demolished. However, the Swedish National Heritage Board opposed because they thought the church was one of the famous Architect Helgo Zettervall's best-preserved buildings. Instead, a extensive renovation was carried out between 2005 and 2012. In the first years, the interior was renovated, and then the exterior was repaired in two stages. Between six and seven thousands of the church's about 18,000 bricks were replaced.