The Mission Room (All Saints Church), Coldhabour Lane

By Diana Parrott & Geoff Woodward

Our Query about the whereabouts of the Methodist Tin Church attracted a number of comments which were, in fact, about the Coldharbour Mission Church.

Coldharbour Lane church from the Lane

Frederick Thurston, EM copy, LHS archives

John Seabrook wrote (in November 2011):

I remember All Saints' very well. It had a succession of lively and committed curates who were among my best contacts when I was a young reporter for the Harpenden Free Press. In the 1950s there were also regular Saturday night dances in the church hall, attended by local young people and their friends from all over Harpenden. Dancing was to gramophone records played by the 'resident DJ' Charles Hincks. These dances were very lively, friendly occasions and were a cheaper alternative to the popular dances at the Public Hall. At Coldharbour there was a lot of fun, no drunkenness (a few went along to the Red Cow, but most of us couldn't afford it) and a great many romances got started, often leading to marriages.

[By John Seabrook (26/11/2011)]

Theodora Wilson's  mention of the church in her journals might be appropriate. On November 30th 1887 she records the proceeds of a bazaar going towards a Mission room in the new part of ColdHarbour.

From "Theodora's Journals" edited by Amy Coburn and Ruth Nason

By Diana Parrott (15/03/2012)

I was baptized in All Saints Church in Coldharbour Lane on Easter Day 9 April 1955. I still have my baptismal card.

By Amanda Duncan (18/06/2013)

My grandparents, David and Dora Bacon, and also my parents for a while, lived at no.1 Coldharbour Lane. I was christened at the church in 1952 and still have my christening cert.

By Sylvia Castleman (14/01/2014)