Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Rothbury

This parish church occupies an important Pre-Conquest site. The chancel and east walls of the transepts date to the 13th century, with the chancel north arcade added in the late 14th century. The remainder of the building was rebuilt in 1849-50 by G. Pickering in 13th and early 14th-century style, with the exception of chancel vestries added in 1887 and a west window of 1900. The medieval parts are constructed of squared stone, while 19th-century work uses tooled-and-margined stone with ashlar dressings. The building is roofed in graduated Lakeland slate.

The church comprises a 4-bay aisled nave with a west tower flanked by vestries, a south-west porch, transepts with 2-bay western aisles, and a chancel with north vestries. All parts are built with chamfered plinths.

The 3-stage west tower features stepped angle buttresses and a south-west stair turret. The west door is studded with ornamental hinges and topped by a moulded arch of 3 orders of colonettes, beneath a 2-light window. The second stage contains 2 trefoiled lancets on the west face and clock faces. The belfry stage has 2-light windows with foiled circles in the spandrels, set beneath multi-chamfered arches, and is topped by an embattled parapet. The stair turret has a shoulder-arched doorway at its base and a gabled top with a pierced quatrefoil. The aisles have stepped buttresses and lancet windows, while a clerestory of paired lancets runs above. The porch features a tall double-chamfered arch and paired lancets on the east return. The transepts are lit by lancet windows; the three on the east of the south transept are medieval, the narrower northern one being the original early 13th-century east window of the south aisle. The south wall of the chancel is divided into 3 bays by stepped buttresses and includes a central shoulder-arched priest's door. Pairs of lancets light each bay; those in the west bay, along with the adjacent buttress, represent 19th-century restoration. The east end displays a triplet of double-chamfered lancets. Gables are coped with finial crosses throughout.

Interior

The interior is plastered throughout. Double-chamfered arcades rest on octagonal piers with moulded capitals; similar responds appear along the nave, except for a 13th-century shafted corbel with nail-head ornament at the east end of the south arcade. A double-chamfered tower arch separates the nave from the tower space. In the east wall of the north transept, an 1887 arch springs from 14th-century responds. The 13th-century chancel arch comprises 2 continuous chamfered orders. A 2-bay north chancel arcade, leading to the former Cartington chapel, has broad double-chamfered arches on a low octagonal pier. A piscina with a wide cusped arch is set in the south wall. The roof structure throughout uses arch-braced collar-beam roofs on moulded corbels, dating to the 19th century.

The sanctuary is tiled with a panelled dado and features an arcaded stone reredos with marble shafts. A richly carved chancel screen and pulpit of 1905 displays saints beneath canopied niches. A tower screen dates to 1912. The font has a shaft formed from the bottom part of an important cross of approximately 800 AD, decorated with Ascension and inhabited vine scrolls. The bowl, dated 1664, bears knotwork and interlace, and is topped by a cover of 1914.

Monuments include 2 small cross slabs of the 13th and 14th centuries and part of a 12th-century gravestone or cross set in the porch walls, along with a 1710 ledger stone to Captain George Fletcher, noted as "High Sherrif" of Northumberland. A mural monument on the chancel north wall commemorates Rector John Tomlinson and Mary, described as "the truly vertuous Matron", his wife, dating to circa 1720. Several early 19th-century wall tablets are positioned in the nave. The chancel stained glass includes an 1886 crucifixion scene with the Virgin Mary and Saint John in the east windows, and representations of Northumbrian saints in a memorial to Reverend Medd (died 1894) on the south.

Historical Context

The previous west tower, demolished in 1850, appears to have been of Pre-Conquest date, similar to that at Jarrow, and likely linked two early churches. The foundations of the western church, which extended beneath and beyond Church Street, were traceable during the 18th century.