A BRIEF HISTORY OF ST SAVIOUR'S

The Bernards Heath area of the city of St Albans was originally in the Parish of Sandridge, which had originally been given to the Abbey of St Albans by King Offa in the 8th century. In the late 1870s small dwellings sprang up on Sandridge Road, overlooking the Heath, near the brickyards. Known as ‘Snob's Island’, it was cut off from the rest of the city by mud wastes. In 1882 the Vicar of Sandridge acquired a plot of land in Culver Road, and at the cost of £250 erected a small iron building to serve as a school-church for the area. In 1888 a permanent school building was opened and the ‘little tin trunk’, as it became known, was improved and continued to serve the area as a Mission Church. In 1895 the Diocesan Mission Society assumed responsibility for the area, and plans were made to erect a permanent Mission Church on land gifted by the Earl Spencer on Sandpit Lane. The foundation stone was laid in July 1896 and work began building the chancel. Notably most of the bricks used in the building the church were from the local brickyard. Work began building the nave in 1901, and the completed church was dedicated by the Bishop of Colchester on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1902.