Church Of All Hallows

Church of All Hallows

This is a church of late 13th-century origin, with an early 15th-century west tower and a late 16th-century north chapel. It is constructed of sandstone rubble with a stone slate roof. The building comprises a west tower, nave, narrower chancel, north chapel, and south porch.

The three-stage tower has diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet. The bell openings have pointed heads with hoods and two cinquefoiled lights with panel tracery. The west window has four cinquefoiled lights with panel tracery and a hood. The west doorway is wide and moulded with a pointed head and hood.

The nave windows are chamfered in two orders, each of two lights with Y-tracery and pointed heads. The north wall contains two windows to the east of the door, and to the west is a two-light window of 18th-century type with a window above having plain reveals to light the gallery. The door is chamfered with a pointed head. The south wall has one original window to the west of the porch and two to the east, with the right-hand one reconstructed. To the west of the porch is another window with plain reveals lighting the gallery. The porch has a wide chamfered outer doorway with a hood, while the inner doorway is moulded with a pointed head and hood with head stops.

The south chancel wall is pebbledashed. To the right of the priest's door are two windows matching the early ones in the nave. To the left is a window with mullion and transom, with trefoiled heads to the upper lights and a trefoil under a pointed head. The doorway has a pointed head and three orders of sun quadrant moulding. The east window has five lights and intersecting tracery.

The north-east, or Shireburne, chapel is of ashlar with one bay to the east and two bays to the north. The windows have Tudor-arched heads with ogee heads to the lights and panel tracery. The west wall has a moulded doorway with a Tudor-arched head. Above is a wall tablet with attached columns enclosing a coat of arms and the date 1594.

Interior

The nave contains a west gallery with a panelled timber front. The open roof is possibly of early 17th-century date and has nine trusses with arch-braced collars and short king posts braced to the ridge. Between the purlins and principals are carved brackets, possibly a 19th-century addition. The chancel arch has two orders of sunk quadrant moulding, with attached shafts and capitals on each side of the opening.

The chancel screen incorporates some medieval woodwork, possibly from Sawley Abbey, including an incomplete 15th-century inscription. Much of the decoration is imitation work in cast iron or terracotta. The chancel contains triple sedilia and a piscina, both moulded with trefoiled heads. The chancel is divided from the Shireburne chapel by two pointed arches of two chamfered orders carried on octagonal piers. Beneath the arches is a wooden screen with turned balusters, the upper parts of the openings being filled with carved tracery with an ogee beneath, possibly 15th-century and re-used.

The nave pews incorporate old woodwork, including initials and a date of 1628. The pulpit contains some 17th-century carving.

The Shireburne Chapel contains several notable memorials. An alabaster chest tomb of Sir Richard Shireburne (died 1594) and his wife Maude features recumbent effigies with the sides of the chest decorated by figures and coats of arms, carved by Roilly of Burton. A wall monument to Richard Shireburne (died 1667) shows kneeling figures facing one another across a prayer desk within an architectural frame with paired columns and an entablature supporting a cartouche. Recumbent effigies commemorate Richard Shireburne (died 1667), Richard and Isabel Shireburne (died 1689 and 1693), and Richard Shireburne (died 1690), all with lengthy inscriptions, commissioned by Isabel Shireburne around 1690 and carved by Edward Stanton. A wall monument to Richard Shireburne (died aged 9 in 1702) by William Stanton depicts a figure of a boy against a reredos background with cherubs.