Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints is a church with significant development across several centuries, beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries with the tower and nave. The nave arcades date to the 12th and 13th centuries, the chancel, transept, and aisles to the 13th century, and the top stage of the tower to the 14th century. Restorations occurred in 1849-51, which included rebuilding the north aisle and south transept, re-roofing, re-flooring, installing a new porch and vestry, and new font and fittings.

The church is constructed of limestone and gritstone ashlar, with squared limestone, gritstone, and coursed limestone rubble, and ashlar dressings. The roof is slate, and there is a timber porch. The church comprises a west tower, a 4-bay aisled nave with a 2-bay south transept and south porch, and a 2-bay chancel with an organ chamber adjoining the north side. The 2-stage west tower has 14th-century diagonal buttresses. The first stage incorporates reused Roman gritstone blocks, some on the north side with moulded detail; a 3-light 14th-century pointed west window features 19th-century Perpendicular tracery, and stair lighting slits are in the south-west corner. A plain string course runs along the tower. The second stage has pointed 2-light belfry openings with Perpendicular tracery, a moulded stringcourse, and an embattled parapet with crocketed angle pinnacles. The aisles exhibit a chamfered plinth, cillbands, buttresses to the north, and single and twin lancets. The south transept has quoins, a chamfered plinth, a cillband, a buttress, two lancets to the east side, a small statue in a 14th-century cinquefoiled niche above, and a pointed 3-light south window with 19th-century Geometrical tracery and a pierced quatrefoil above. Fragments of decorated medieval gravestones are set in the south wall. The chancel has quoins, a cillband, buttresses on the south side, lancets to the north and south sides, a pointed chamfered priest’s doorway and door with decorative hinges, and triple east lancets with 19th-century dripmoulds and a pierced quatrefoil above. The south porch displays an ashlar plinth, a pointed outer door with trefoiled spandrels and sidelights, and an ornate bargeboard, alongside a 19th-century pointed moulded inner door.

The interior features a tall, pointed, triple-chamfered tower arch with plain moulded capitals and chamfered jambs. The south arcade presents slender cylindrical piers with plain moulded bases, scalloped capitals, and octagonal abaci with billet moulding; the arches are of two orders with chevron and lozenge mouldings and a billeted dripmould. The north arcade has broad cylindrical piers, scalloped capitals, and square abaci with pellet moulding; the 12th-century arches are of two orders with pellet and lozenge mouldings, originally round-headed and likely re-set as pointed in the 13th century. A pointed double-chamfered chancel arch springs from moulded corbels with a carved head at the apex. The chancel contains a cillband, a double trefoiled piscina divided by a chamfered shaft with a moulded base and capital; on the north side are a blank pointed opening and a low chamfered segmental-arched niche containing a fine 13th-century knight effigy, believed to be of Sir William Marmion, who died in 1276. A marble wall tablet commemorating James Heaton, 1833, is in the north aisle.