Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, designed in 1863 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, is a Victorian Gothic church built of squared rubble with ashlar dressings and a plain tile roof. It comprises a nave with south aisle, chancel, south-western porch and north-eastern vestry.

The western front features a slightly projecting plinth extending across the whole building with a string course at window-sill level. Three projecting symmetrically disposed bays project to the left. The central bay contains a doorway with moulded ashlar surround and pillarettes flanking double doors, topped by a hood mould with male and female figurehead label stops and a gablet enclosing a flower in a roundel. Above is a 3-light window with trefoil heads and a hollow-chamfered relieving arch with trefoils above the lateral lights. Above this sits a canopied niche containing a figure of Christ, surmounted by a bellcote with two lancet openings with gadrooned corbels to their sides and colonettes to the corners, and a trefoil to the gablet topped by a weathercock. Buttresses with offsets flank this central bay. Beyond these are lancets with corner buttresses. The recessed southern aisle to the right has a central 3-light window with trefoil heads and an octofoil to the apex, with a hood mould featuring figurehead label stops and a cross-shaped finial to the gable.

The south face has four bays to the aisle, each with two pointed lights and a cinquefoil, separated by buttresses with offsets. The second bay from the left features a gabled porch with a chamfered pointed arch flanked by semi-octagonal colonettes, a hood mould and figurehead label stops. Heavy clasping buttresses frame the corners, decorated with a frieze of foliage ornament below a terminating offset. The porch gable has a trefoil and cross to its summit. Side walls carry paired trefoil-headed lancets.

The north side has four bays with similar buttresses and fenestration, and a blank half-bay at the right. The chancel's south face includes a chantry chapel, narrower than the south aisle, with a doorway at left and two trefoil-headed lancets with hood moulds and figurehead label stops to the right. Further right is one recessed chancel window of two lights with central and lateral pillarettes and deeply undercut moulded tracery with a cinquefoil to the apex. The northern face has a gabled vestry projecting at right, fitted with a 2-light window and cinquefoil above it, and a 2-flue chimney stack to the gable. To the left are two windows matching those on the southern side. The eastern end has a chancel window of five lights on a raised string, with three lights deeply moulded and undercut with pillarettes to the mullions. The apex shows two quatrefoils with a cinquefoil hood mould and label stops depicting a bishop and queen. The eastern end of the chantry chapel, recessed and to the left, has paired trefoil-headed lancets dissected and flanked by colonettes, with a cinquefoil in a richly moulded circular surround showing foliage to the gable.

Interior detailing includes chamfered window reveals to the nave and chancel. The south aisle piers are of quatrefoil section with hood moulds and figurehead label stops, topped by a barrel vault. The nave features arched braces with cusping springing from decoratively carved corbels and has arched wind bracing. The chancel arch is flanked by grey marble columns with richly moulded foliate capitals. A double column of grey marble divides the chancel from the chantry chapel, with further columns of grey and green marble with lushly carved capitals flanking the eastern window. The Wilbraham chantry chapel is separated from the south aisle by a richly wrought iron screen with three arched openings and quartered circles to the lower body. To the left of the eastern window is a trefoil-headed niche with a gablet and flanking colonettes, containing a terra-cotta bust by A Carrier dated 1854 of Randle Wilbraham. An octagonal alabaster pulpit stands to the left of the chancel arch, featuring arcade openings divided by marble colonettes with mosaic inlay. The alabaster font, similarly inlayed, is formed as a chalice of quatrefoil section on a stepped base.

The architectural historian Goodhart-Rendel remarked of the church: "Taking things all round, I like this best of any Scott church I have seen.....Everything seems to me a triumph of the academic type of good Gothic design....there is nothing but safety first - but it is safety". The design is matched by high-quality craftsmanship throughout.