Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a medieval parish church with significant later additions and alterations. The building comprises an early 13th-century west tower and nave, 14th-century aisles that were substantially rebuilt around 1821, and a chancel and south vestry designed in the geometrical style by J L Pearson in 1865. The church is constructed of ashlar with slate roofs.

The west tower is in three stages with a chamfered plinth. The south door has two pointed and chamfered orders, the inner set on carved corbels beneath a hoodmould with chamfered imposts. A chamfered string separates each stage. The belfry openings consist of paired lancets under a round arch. A low parapet with moulded coping crowns the tower. The west wall features a projecting carved head to the bottom stage, a lancet to the second stage, and similar belfry openings above. The north side is identical to the south except for the addition of a clock face to the second stage.

The nave is of four bays and is aisled. It has a moulded plinth and buttresses with offsets. The south side displays three two-light pointed windows with Decorated tracery beneath hoodmoulds featuring face stops. A pointed south door of two orders with nook-shafts is set under a hoodmould. The clerestory contains four two-light square-headed windows with cusped ogee tracery, all beneath hoodmoulds with face stops. A low parapet runs along the top. The north side has similar fenestration.

The three-bay chancel has a chamfered plinth, a buttress with offset and gablet displaying blank tracery. The two easternmost windows are pointed, of two lights with geometrical tracery; the western bay is occupied by the projecting vestry. The vestry's south window is pointed, of three lights with geometrical tracery including a transom. A pointed priests' door in the east vestry wall has carved nook-shafts beneath a continuous string that forms a sill band to the chancel windows. The chancel's pointed east window contains four lights with geometrical tracery under a hoodmould. The north side has three pointed two-light windows with geometrical tracery. Stone copings with a ridge cross finish the chancel roof.

Interior

The nave's west door has two pointed orders—the outer square, the inner with a continuous narrow chamfer—on chamfered imposts with a triangular hoodmould. The north and south nave arcades feature pointed double-chamfered arches springing from octagonal piers. A pointed chancel arch of two moulded orders on nook-shafts with carved capitals and moulded bases separates the nave from the chancel. The rear arches of the chancel windows rest on similar, smaller shafts.

In the south-east corner of the chancel stands a 14th-century piscina with a scalloped bowl decorated with foliage and a grinning face on its sides beneath a cusped ogee arch with foliage sprigs to the cusps. At the south-west end of the nave is a small 12th-century carved figure with long, hanging sleeves inserted into the south wall. An 18th-century font comprises a small moulded basin on a polygonal baluster. Fragments of two earlier font basins—one octagonal—lie nearby.

Monuments and Furnishings

The nave's west end contains a black marble tablet with white lettering bearing a long Latin inscription to Sir Tobias Hodson, who died in 1664. An alabaster chest tomb commemorates Rachel Gee, died 1684, carved with a recumbent figure in a winding sheet with a child beside it on the slab, decorated with quatrefoils and bearing an inscription to the base.

The chancel contains three brasses. To the north is a chalice brass to Peter Johnson, vicar, who died in 1460, and a lady of the 15th century. On the south side is a brass to the Ellerker family with an erased date, probably early 16th century, showing two figures with an inscription above.