Former Church Of All Saints

FORMER CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS

A parish church of 12th to 15th-century date, with a chancel rebuilt in 1829 and major restoration undertaken in 1874–76 by the Leicester architects Goddard and Paget. The church stands on High Cross Street, Leicester, and was prominently sited at the heart of the medieval town.

The building is constructed of local rubble stone with freestone dressings, with brick used for the 1829 chancel. The roofs are of late 19th-century slate, except for the 1829 chancel which retains a graded-slate roof. The plan comprises an aisled nave with a lower chancel and a north-east tower.

The exterior displays mainly geometrical and Decorated styles. The west front, facing the street, has five-light and four-light geometrical windows to the nave and aisles respectively, inserted in the 1874–76 restoration to complement interior work of around 1300. The west doorway is 12th-century in date, though probably reset to its current position. It features two orders of shafts with scalloped capitals and chevron decoration in the arch. The double doors are of 15th-century date with intricate Gothic blind panelling and some restoration. The aisles are buttressed with plain parapets, three-light north and south windows, and clerestory windows that are also three-light. The westernmost bay of each aisle contains a doorway with nook shafts and restored 15th-century doors with blind panelling matching the west door. Above the south doorway sits a clock with a gabled wooden bellcote; above the north doorway is a 19th-century-renewed quatrefoil window.

The three-stage tower at the east end of the north aisle may once have been freestanding. Its wider lower stage retains restored 12th-century angle pilasters of unusual semi-circular section, a detail also found at St Mary-de-Castro in Leicester and at St Peter in Northampton and Tickencote in Rutland. The unrestored south-west buttress now lies inside the north aisle. The pointed west doorway and west window, the latter with double chamfer, are 13th-century. The upper stages are 15th-century with diagonal buttresses and two-light transomed bell openings with louvres beneath an embattled parapet. The four-bay brick chancel has a coped gable and diagonal buttresses with gablets. It contains a three-light Perpendicular east window and south windows with Y-tracery, the outer of which are blind.

The interior nave displays six-bay arcades of around 1300 with double-chamfered arches and octagonal piers. The nave roof is 19th-century with king posts and tracery above the beams, modelled on the late-medieval aisle roofs, which retain corbelled posts and bosses and carved heads on the trusses. The blocked chancel arch and tall tower arch share the same 13th-century detail: double-chamfered arches on filleted shafts. Rood-loft doorways are visible in the nave walls. The south aisle contains an ogee-headed piscina in the third bay, with a cusped tomb recess and cusped piscina further east. The plaster has been stripped from the walls, revealing above the chancel arch the outline of an earlier, lower roof. The floor is of 20th-century concrete paving, with some former grave slabs, 19th-century tiles, and a section of medieval tiles, alongside parquet floors below the pews. The chancel is said to be partly laid with 15th-century tiles.

Among the principal fixtures is an outstanding 13th-century font decorated with trefoils and rich foliage around the bowl, mounted on a round stem with detached shafts. The 15th-century polygonal pulpit, repainted and placed on a new base in the 19th century, bears blind ogee-headed tracery and small buttresses. Nave benches feature rounded heads and ogee panels; benches have been removed from the aisles and part of the nave. At the west end of the nave and north aisle stands a low former screen base with carved blind-tracery panels. Above the south-west doorway is a clock case of around 1620, with internal and external clock faces. The church contains numerous wall monuments. Medieval glass fragments survive in the tower's west window. Late 19th and early 20th-century stained glass includes work by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, Clayton & Bell, and a war-memorial window by Morris & Company. The chancel is said to contain wall monuments to Matthew Simons (died 1714) and Gabriel Newton (died 1762), though these were not visible at inspection.

The church originates in the 12th century, evidenced by the west doorway and tower base. Around 1300 the church was enlarged with the addition of aisles, and in the 15th century the tower was heightened, the nave was raised, and the present aisle roofs were constructed. The chancel was rebuilt in 1829. In 1843, new seating and a gallery extension were added by Henry Goddard (1792–1868), the Leicester architect, who also restored the roofs in 1855–56. Between 1874 and 1876, Joseph Goddard (1840–1900) and Alfred Paget (1848–1909), also of Leicester, undertook more thorough restoration, inserting new windows, constructing a new nave roof, and removing the gallery. The walls may have been stripped of plaster at this time. The tower underwent restoration in 1894–95 by William Basset-Smith. Since 1960 the chancel arch has been infilled and the chancel used only for storage. The church became redundant in 1986 and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.