Church of All Saints, Houghton Regis
The Church of All Saints' serves as the parish church for Houghton Regis. All Saints’ is a medieval Grade I listed building. Characterised by flint and clunch checker work on the exterior, the church dates predominantly from the 13th and 14th centuries, with 15th century additions.
The religious use of the site predates the present building and is claimed to go back to Saxon times. During the reign of Edward the Confessor Houghton Regis was a royal manor. A pre-Conquest church located on the site of the current Parish Church was one of very few in Bedfordshire to be mentioned in Domesday Book, which records that it was held by William the Chamberlain, who also held St Mary’s Church, Luton. Domesday also recorded the church's finances. Its financial endowment, half a hide, was valued at 12s. In 1291 the church's value (mostly from its glebe land) was recorded at £16.13s.4d. King Henry I gave Houghton Regis to Earl Robert of Gloucester, and subsequently his son William granted it to the monks of St Albans Abbey in 1153. However, only the font remains today from that church.
All Saints was reconstructed in later centuries, probably before the leadership of Abbot John Moore of St Albans, who ordered the Tithe Barn adjacent to the churchyard to be constructed between 1396 and 1401. The church of ALL SAINTS consists of a chancel, a nave, a south aisle, extended westward to form an organ chamber, with a modern south porch, a north aisle, extended westward to form a vestry, and a west tower. The chancel, nave and aisles were built early in the 14th century, and the chancel arch and nave arcades of this date remain, with the internal jambs of several windows of the nave; the west tower was added in the 15th century, but the rest of the walls of the church have been entirely rebuilt and new windows inserted.
The churchyard was closed to new burials in the 1980s. In 2019 a major restoration of the outer fabric ensures that All Saints' is taken out of the ‘Heritage At Risk Register’.
Bells
There are six bells: the treble by John Briant, Hertford, 1815; the second also by John Briant, 1816; the third by Newcombe, 1616, recast in 1899 by Taylor; the fourth by John Briant, Hertford, 1811; the fifth by John Dier, 1580, recast in 1899 by Taylor; and the tenor by Anthony Chandler, 1673.
The plate is modern and electro-plated.
The registers prior to 1813 are in six books: (1) all entries 1538 to 1678; (2) the same 1704 to 1767, marriages to 1754; (3) marriages 1754 to 1795; (4) baptisms and burials 1768 to 1807; (5) marriages 1795 to 1807; (6) marriages 1807 to 1812