IT STOOD in the centre of Southampton for many decades but then, in just one night, it was destroyed, never to rise again.

The story of All Saints' Church, which used to stand on the corner of Southampton's High Street and East Street, featured in last week's Hampshire Heritage sparked a great deal of local interest with many readers asking for more information about the former building.

In March 1954 four people, the then Rural Dean, Canon Harold Caesar, Marjorie Waller, a former churchwarden and a Daily Echo reporter and photographer, picked their way through what little remained of the church.

The purpose of this visit was to hold a service of deconsecration as it had been decided not to rebuild this historic church.

Previously an official notice, with the seal of the Bishop of Winchester, was placed on the door of the church to inform passers-by of the demolition of the ruins and the clearance of the site.

On the grass-grown floor of the church near to where the altar once stood, Canon Caesar read the following office: "Good people: seeing that the remains of this building and this ground, which, in other days were consecrated and set apart for ever for the worship of God according to the rites of the Church of England, can no longer fulfil the purpose for which they were consecrated, and have been surrendered by due process of the law to secular use.'' And so the church where author Jane Austen worshipped when she lived in Southampton was swept away leaving just memories of the imposing frontage, a copy of the Temple of Minerva of ancient Rome.

Many Sotonians will remember the roofless burnt-out nave, shattered walls and broken pillars - all that was left of the church at the end of the Second World War.

Many remember, too, that tragic morning of Monday, December 1, 1940 when they were struggling to make their way down High Street and saw the smoke and flames bursting out here and there all through the bombed church.

There had been an All Saints or All Hallows on that site since the 12th century and Henry II granted it to the monks of St.

Denys.

The church register was begun in 1653 and was described as: "A booke of registers for the parish of All Hallows in the town and county of Southampton for the registering of marriages, births and burialls according to an Act of Parliament dated August ye 24 Anno Domini 1653.'' One entry said: "Elizabeth Loder, barberously murthered in ye Porters Field, whose body was diged up for John Norborn and others to touch her body.

'' This demonstrated how strong the belief was in the 17th century of the benefit of touching the bodies of murdered people as a cure for certain diseases.

Two other entries said: "This day a man was found dead in the town ditch'' and "Today a man crossing under the Barre (Bargate) was knocked down and killed by a stage coach.'' These days most people in Southampton have probably forgotten about the small All Saints' burial ground off Eastgate Street and Backof- the-Walls.

In fact many will never have heard of the graveyard.

In the early part of the last century tombstones were removed and by the 1960s the area had become a car park.

These days there is a multi-storey carpark on the site.