Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of largely 14th and 15th-century date, though it incorporates reused 13th-century arches within the nave arcades and 14th-century windows to the north aisle. The chancel underwent significant restoration in 1851, including the installation of a new east window. During the 19th century, the church received new flooring, seating and roofing.

The building is constructed in limestone ashlar, except for the rendered west sides of the aisles and the clerestory, which is built of coursed rubble and squared blocks. The clerestory is fully rendered on the north side and partly rendered on the south. The roofing is varied: lead covers the aisles, north chapel and porch, Welsh slate covers the nave and chancel, and the vestry has a concrete tile roof.

The church comprises a west tower, a three-bay aisled nave with south porch, and a three-bay chancel with a two-bay north chapel and vestry adjoining the south side. A moulded plinth runs throughout the building.

The tower is three storeys tall, with angle buttresses featuring offsets. The first stage contains a pointed two-light cinquefoiled west window with hoodmould, head stops and relief carving of a shield above it, and a pointed south door, probably inserted. The second stage, set back, has pointed slit lights to north and south, a recessed panel to the west bearing a worn inscription, and a clock face on the south side. The third stage holds pointed two-light belfry openings with partly restored foiled Y tracery, hoodmoulds and head stops. The tower is topped with a corbel table, angle gargoyles, and a coped embattled parapet with crocketed angle pinnacles.

The north aisle has buttresses between bays with offsets and a weathered string course below sill level, with the wall stepped inward above. A blocked pointed north door with wave-and-hollow mouldings sits beneath the string course. The north windows are pointed three-light examples with reticulated tracery, one of which has been restored. A blocked pointed arch on the west side has an inserted pointed two-light window. The aisle is finished with a coped parapet.

The south aisle is supported by angle buttresses and buttresses between bays, these supporting shafts that have worn gargoyles below the parapet. Two pointed three-light windows with Perpendicular tracery stand on the south, with hoodmoulds carved with head and grotesque stops. A similar east window has restored mullions. A blocked pointed arch on the west side contains a small inserted lancet. The aisle terminates in a coped embattled parapet.

The south porch has a pointed outer arch with wave-and-hollow mouldings beneath a crocketed hoodmould. The hoodmould has worn carved angel stops holding shields. A string course above bears a tablet inscribed with the names of church wardens, a shield and the date 1755. A moulded string course with a mutilated carved figure on the east side sits below a coped embattled gable parapet. The inner arch is also pointed with wave-and-hollow mouldings.

The clerestory features two pointed two-light cinquefoiled windows to north and south in moulded reveals, and a four-centred-arched three-light traceried east window above the chancel roof. A moulded string course runs below a coped parapet and gable with cross finial.

The chancel, north chapel and vestry all have angle buttresses and buttresses between bays with offsets. Both the chancel and chapel have sill string courses. The chancel's south side contains a blocked pointed door and two pointed three-light Perpendicular-traceried windows. A large 19th-century pointed five-light Perpendicular-traceried east window with moulded reveal occupies the east end. All windows in the chancel feature crenellated supertransoms. The chancel finishes with a moulded string course and coped parapet.

The north chapel holds a pointed three-light north window with restored Perpendicular tracery and a pointed three-light east window with restored reticulated tracery. It has a moulded string course and restored coped parapet.

The vestry is entered via a pointed south door with wave-and-hollow mouldings and hoodmould. A single-light trefoiled ogee south window with moulded reveal and wrought-iron bars is matched by a similar west window. A four-centred-arch three-light east window, with the outer lights blocked, has trefoiled lights, incised spandrels and a wave-moulded reveal. A moulded string course with a carved head to the west precedes the coped parapet. An octagonal chimney with crenellated shaft adjoins the chancel.

Internally, the nave features tall arcades of 13th-century pointed moulded arches with two keeled orders, hoodmoulds and head stops to the inner face and roll-moulded soffit. The outer face has keeled and wave-moulded orders, except in the south-east bay which is keeled on both sides. These arches rest on 14th and 15th-century octagonal piers with moulded and crenellated capitals and bell-shaped octagonal bases. The tower doorway is a pointed arch of two continuous wave-moulded orders within a tall blind arch rising the full height of the nave, with similar mouldings. Blocked pointed west arches to the aisles mirror these mouldings.

The north aisle contains a pointed east arch to the north chapel with continuous double chamfer and octagonal bases to the responds, a pointed wave-moulded arch to the blocked north door, and a plain corbelled image bracket with foliate carving to the north wall. The south aisle has a chamfered arch to the south door and a mutilated corbelled image bracket with foliate carving on the east wall. A pointed double-chamfered chancel arch dies into the jambs.

The chancel features a three-bay arcade to the north chapel with pointed arches of two wave-moulded orders resting on octagonal piers and responds with moulded crenellated capitals and moulded octagonal bases. A four-centred-arched doorway to the vestry has two hollow-chamfered orders and a fielded-panelled door. The south-west window has a wave-and-hollow-moulded reveal with broach stops. Triple sedilia with sub-cusped cinquefoiled ogee arches, wave-and-hollow mouldings, buttress shafts with moulded offsets and crenellated frieze above occupy the south side. A wave-moulded cinquefoiled ogee piscina with moulded corbelled bowl is also present.

All roofing dates to the 19th century. The nave roof spans six bays with corbelled wall shafts, moulded tie beams with pointed carved bosses, and arch-braced principal rafters. The three-bay chancel roof has corbelled wall posts with arch braces to moulded tie beams and pendants.

The church contains numerous monuments. A 15th-century chest tomb in the east bay of the chancel arcade bears three rectangular cusped panels with shields on the north and south sides, one shield to the south showing arms in relief, the rest blank and much worn. A 14th-century effigy of a knight in the north chapel, fashioned from a coped stone perhaps of Saxon origin, has head and feet in ogee reveals and a shield and cross motif on top.

An inscribed brass plate on a chancel arcade pier commemorates Elizabeth Taylor of 1728. Black marble floor slabs in the north chapel record Robert Ryther of 1693 and 1695, both bearing incised mantled arms and crests in roundels.

Wall tablets in the north chapel include a fine marble tablet to Katherine Johnson of 1786 by I Fisher of York, featuring an obelisk base, inscribed oval plaque with guilloche border, frieze and cartouche below, damaged swag, cornice and draped urn above. Three tablets by J Lockwood of Doncaster commemorate Robert Popplewell Steer of 1826 with guttae, draped shield and crest; Maria Lammin of 1822 with ribbed pilasters, cornice and lamp; and John and Hannah Collinson of 1827-8 with panelled pilasters, moulded cornice, lamp, crossed trumpet and torch. A pedimented tablet with acroteria to William Johnson of 1831 by Walsh and Dunbar of Leeds is joined by a pedimented tablet to Katherine Collinson of 1836 by E Gaffin of London with palm fronds and shield; a tablet to William Collinson of 1846 by T Gaffin of London; a plain tablet to John Hilton, clerk, of 1853 by Longley of Canterbury; and a pedimented tablet to James and Hariot Lammin of around 1853 by Maile of London.

The font is a plain 13th-century circular bowl with a short cylindrical shaft and water-holding base resting on an octagonal step. Two small late medieval stained glass panels bearing coats of arms appear in the south-west chancel window; the remainder of the stained glass is 19th and 20th-century work. The fine chancel south windows share similar tracery to windows in the tower at Saint Augustine's Church, Hedon, designed by Robert Playser between 1427 and 1437.