Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

A parish church, now redundant, located in the Parish of Kedleston, Kedleston Park. The building displays work from the 12th century, late 13th century, 14th century, and early 17th century, with a major restoration in 1885. The north aisle was added in 1907-9 by architect G F Bodley. The church is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with sandstone dressings. The roofs are Welsh slate with stone coped gables, stone ridge tiles and parapets. A chamfered plinth and string course run around the building.

The plan is cruciform, consisting of a central tower, a nave with north aisle, transepts, a clerestoried chancel and a north vestry.

The south doorway dates to the 12th century and features one order of colonnettes with beakheads biting into them. The round arch has zigzag moulding enclosing a defaced tympanum with traces of beasts. The door is of plank construction. To the right are two 2-light flat-arched windows with cusped ogee lights. The transepts each contain a late 13th-century window of three stepped lancet lights with stopped hoodmoulds. There are no openings to the west or east. Diagonal buttresses support the transepts.

The south side of the chancel has a trefoiled lancet with hoodmould and a priest's doorway with continuous keeled and filleted mouldings. The door features wrought-iron work dated 1613. To the right is a 2-light window, possibly 17th-century, under a flat arch (it appears in an engraving of 1792). The lights are cusped lancets with quatrefoils in circles above. The wall was raised in the 17th century and contains two 2-light clerestory windows, each light of almost keyhole shape. The east wall has diagonal buttresses and a 19th-century 3-light window with geometrical tracery. A 17th-century parapet features a pedimented sundial with cherub head and aprons. End piers carry skull and cross-bones motifs with urn finials. The north side of the chancel has a 2-light window and two clerestory windows matching those on the south side. A 19th-century flat-roofed vestry stands to the north, with two 2-light cusped lancets under flat arches.

The north aisle chapel comprises three bays and dates to 1907-9 by Bodley. The bays are divided by full-height buttresses with two gablets. Each bay contains a row of three trefoils below the plinth serving as ventilators, and a 3-light window with reticulated tracery. The parapet is inscribed "Qui Amultum Amavit" in each bay, with a similar west bay. The west wall of the nave has diagonal buttresses and a 19th-century 3-light window with reticulated tracery. The gable above, raised in 1885, contains a small trefoiled lancet. The central tower has a chamfered string course. Below it, to the south-west and north-east, are trefoiled lancets. Late 13th-century 2-light bell openings with Y-tracery appear on each face. A battlemented parapet and four crocketed pinnacles crown the tower. 13th-century steep pitch roof lines remain visible to the south, north and east.

Interior: The crossing is spanned by massive triple-chamfered arches with moulded capitals. The north arcade has three bays with quatrefoil piers containing fillets and filleted keels in the hollows. Moulded capitals carry fleurons. The arches feature wave and hollow mouldings with fleurons in the hollow, and a moulded hoodmould. Piscinae are located in the south transept (with a single-chamfered arch), the north transept (with a moulded arch), and the chancel (with a sub-cusped moulded arch). An aumbry recess stands in the chancel. A wooden rib vault with tiercerons spans beneath the tower, while plaster groin vaults cover the transepts. A late 19th-century organ case occupies the north transept. A 19th-century open-work wooden pulpit stands in the nave, accompanied by a brass eagle lectern of 1886. An early 18th-century stone font features a circular bowl on a polygonal shaft dividing into four scrolly feet, with a painted wooden cover. Eighteenth-century panelled dado appears in the nave and on the east wall of the chancel. Eighteenth-century box pews occupy the chancel, with early 18th-century communion rails. The north arcade features elaborate iron gates and screen by P Krall. Wrought-iron corona lucis and light fittings are present throughout. Stained glass includes heraldic glass in the chancel, 17th-century continental figure screens in the south windows, and early 20th-century glass by F C Eden. Five hatchments are displayed.

Monuments are concentrated in the chancel, south transept, and north transept. The chancel contains an effigy of Sir John Curzon, died 1406, reset in a tomb recess with a depressed crocketed and pinnacled ogee arch with shields above. The jamb of an earlier arch remains to the left. Richard De Curzon, died 1275, and his wife have their heads set in quatrefoils and sunk into the floor, presumably part of grave slabs. Richard Curzon, died 1496, and his wife are commemorated by a brass with figures. William Curzon, died 1547, is remembered by an incised slab set in the floor. Sir Nathaniel Curzon and his wife have identical classical tablets dated 1912. Alfred Curzon, died 1916, is commemorated by an early 17th-century style tablet. Blanche Baroness Scarsdale, died 1875, has a tablet with a portrait in high relief.

The south transept contains a tomb chest to Sir John Curzon and his wife, dated circa 1450, featuring effigies and figures of angels and saints along the front. A 13th-century coffin lid with a foliated cross, possibly to Thomas De Curzon, died 1245, also stands here. An incised lead plaque commemorates William Curzon, died 1749. Sir John Curzon, died 1727, is marked by an obelisk with a portrait medallion surrounded by a wreath of cherubs' heads and standing putti on either side. John Curzon, died 1719, has a tablet treated as a swag. Sir John Curzon and his wife, 1664, are commemorated by two niched panels with columns on either side and frontal demi-figures with an angel in whole figure. The predella contains seven frontal busts of children between draperies. Several early 19th-century tablets complete the south transept monuments.

The north transept holds a monument to Sir Nathaniel Curzon, dated 1765, designed by Robert Adam and executed by Rysbrack. It features a rusticated pyramid with upright figures of husband, wife and two sons. Another monument to Sir Nathaniel Curzon and his wife, dated 1737 by Peter Scheemakers, is a standing wall monument with an obelisk and figures of husband and wife in Roman attire seated with an urn between them.

In the north aisle chapel stands a large free-standing white marble tomb chest with effigies, dated 1913, by Sir B MacKennel.