Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church with origins in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, when the tower, south aisle, arcades and chancel were constructed. The building underwent major restorations in 1867 and 1874 by James Fowler of Louth, which included re-roofing, re-seating, installing a new tower ceiling, rebuilding the chancel and south aisle, and constructing a new vestry. The north aisle was rebuilt in 1876. The tower was further restored and its top stage rebuilt by E W Farebrother of Grimsby. An organ chamber was added in 1911. A 20th-century church hall of no special architectural interest adjoins the central section of the south aisle.

The building is constructed of ironstone rubble and ashlar with limestone ashlar patching and dressings. The organ chamber and tower parapet are of limestone ashlar, and the roof is slate. The plan comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave with a three-bay north aisle, a four-bay south aisle, and a three-bay chancel with organ chamber and vestry adjoining the north side.

The three-stage tower is in Early English style, featuring a plinth and clasping buttresses with a cill band. The west face has a shafted lancet window with twin lancets above. The belfry stage has shafted two-light openings with plate tracery, pierced quatrefoils above and dogtooth moulded surrounds. Gargoyles ornament the structure, and the parapet is coped and embattled.

The north aisle has a plinth and buttresses, with 19th-century two-light square-headed traceried windows on the north face and a pointed three-light traceried window to the west.

The organ chamber is lit by two pointed two-light traceried windows—one from the 19th century to the right and one restored from the 13th century to the left, probably reset from the chancel.

The south aisle features buttresses and a pointed triple-chamfered door with a plain hood mould. The windows are 19th-century square-headed three-light traceried examples, with the central window retaining its original 14th-century head and a section of hood mould. Pointed three-light traceried windows occupy the east and west ends.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth and angle buttresses, with additional 19th-century buttresses between bays. The south side displays a pointed chamfered door and two windows: a late 14th or 15th-century square-headed two-light traceried example and an early 14th-century pointed two-light traceried window. A large 19th-century three-light traceried window lights the east end.

Interior features include three-bay arcades of pointed double-chamfered arches carried on quatrefoil piers with diagonal shafts between the foils, moulded capitals and bases set on diagonally-oriented plinths. The north piers are slightly more ornate than the south. A wide pointed double-chamfered tower arch springs from shafted responds with plain moulded capitals and bases. Above it, a blocked square-headed door and the outline of a former nave gable are visible.

The north aisle contains a trefoiled ogee-headed piscina. The south aisle retains a square-headed rood loft doorway. The chancel arch is pointed and double-chamfered with a broach-stopped outer chamfer and plain moulded capitals on chamfered jambs.

The chancel is furnished with a cill band at the east end, triple sedilia with detached shafts and moulded capitals beneath crocketed and finialed gables, and a double piscina. The piscina formerly had trefoiled arches beneath a square hood mould with carved foliate ornament, though the central sections are now missing. A pointed chamfered north door opens from the chancel, and a 19th-century double-chamfered arch connects to the organ chamber.

The 19th-century roofs throughout include quadripartite timber vaulting to the tower with moulded ribs and a carved boss.

Furnishings of note include two brasses to members of the Waltham family. A brass to Joanna Waltham (died 1420) and her son and daughter displays small half-figures with an inscription below, reset on the chancel south window-sill. A 14th-century brass inscription to John and Mary Waltham is similarly reset on the chancel north window-sill. A fine 14th or 15th-century Perpendicular font features an ornate octagonal bowl carved with flowers and angels holding shields, mounted on a later shaft with trefoiled panels and a moulded base.