Every Thursday afternoon the pastor received the most active members of the British colony for tea: the Anglican church of Bordighera, dedicated to All Saints, was also that, a centre of social life. The English community wintered here from October to May, and its religious history begins in 1863, when the first faithful still gathered for prayer at the Hotel d'Angleterre, today villa Eugenia, at via Vittorio Emanuele 218. As their numbers grew, the bishop of Gibraltar appointed a pastor of their own, the Reverend Henry Sidebottom; later the congregation was hosted in the private chapel of Mrs Walker Fanshawe, inside the park of villa Rosa. In 1873 it was she who gave away a portion of that park so that a real church could be built, paid for by a subscription in which Charles Henry Lowe took an active part.
What to see
The building seen today is the result of two successive enlargements: one in 1883, the other in 1890, when two side aisles, a new sacristy and a room for the organ were added to the original small hall. Its appearance is the one the church took on at the end of the nineteenth century. Services were held until 2000; then the municipality bought the property, restored it and turned it into a multi-purpose cultural centre hosting exhibitions, concerts, lectures and performances.
The church cannot be read on its own: together with its gardens and villa Rosa it belongs to the complex protected by the Liguria heritage authority for architecture and landscape. One name attached to this parish is worth a stop of its own, the chaplain Clarence Bicknell, who catalogued the rock carvings and the plants of the area and after whom the Bicknell museum in Bordighera is named.
Visiting
The former church stands in via Regina Vittoria, in the district the English built around their own villas and gardens. It keeps no monument opening hours: you get in when something is on the programme, and the programme is set by the town council. It is worth checking the cultural calendar before going up, especially out of season. Do not look for liturgical furnishings inside: the hall has been adapted as a space for exhibitions and concerts, and the building is still read mainly from the outside.
Our editors' tip
We go when it is open for an exhibition: it is the only way to see the inside without contrivance, and in the meantime you can walk the gardens and villa Rosa, part of the same protected complex. If you are staying in town, add the Bicknell museum: the story of the English colony that built this church makes far more sense when the two are read together.