Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a Grade I listed church situated on Church Street in Ashover. It dates from the early and late 15th century, with surviving remains from the late 13th century and mid 14th century.

The church is constructed of squared sandstone with shallow-pitched lead roofs. It features embattled parapets on all elevations except the north aisle roof. The building comprises a west tower with a stone spire set back behind embattled parapets, a nave with clerestory, north and south aisles, a south porch, a north vestry and organ chamber.

The tower is three storeys tall with angle buttresses. The bell openings are of two cinquefoiled lights with dagger tracery below flat heads. The lower stages are blank on the north side and have a single ogee-light window facing west. The south wall of the tower includes a slit window, a clock face, and a round-arched doorway under a straight cornice. Stone gargoyles project below the parapet. The clerestory contains 3-light mullioned windows with flat heads and slightly pointed light heads. The north aisle has similar windows with segmental or slightly pointed lights, with three windows facing north and one facing west. The north wall includes a doorway with a moulded trefoiled ogee head and has a projecting boiler house with chimney. Set back to the east is a one-bay organ chamber featuring a 19th-century window of three cinquefoiled lights under a pointed head with Perpendicular tracery. The adjacent vestry has a pointed doorway with a one-light window to its left and a 2-light window to its right.

The south aisle comprises three bays to the east of the porch with mullioned windows of three lights and round heads under straight lintels. The porch has an outer pointed chamfered arch in two orders. The coped gable is of shallow pitch with an 18th-century stone sundial of square plan at the apex. The inner doorway appears to have been rebuilt in late 13th-century style with a pointed arch moulded in three orders and with angle shafts. The east window of the south aisle is of three lights with renewed Perpendicular tracery under a Tudor-arched head. The east window of the chancel is similar. The three windows in the south wall of the chancel are each of three lights under flat lintels. A door to the right of the left-hand window has a chamfered ogee arch with a carved head in the centre of its hood mould.

Interior

The internal walls are of exposed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The tower arch is pointed and wave moulded in two orders. The northern nave arcade comprises four bays of steeply pointed arches chamfered in two orders, springing from octagonal piers with moulded caps. A fifth, eastern, bay has a lower arch. The south arcade is of four bays with taller pointed arches chamfered in two orders and slim octagonal piers.

The chancel archway is partly a 19th-century reconstruction and is pointed and chamfered in two orders. The outline of an earlier roof, below the level of the present clerestory, can be seen in the wall above and also above the tower arch. To the south of the arch a squint opens into the chancel. To the north, a doorway and steps in the east wall of the north aisle formerly led to a rood loft.

The boarded roof over the nave was renewed in 1968 and is of shallow pitch with exposed tie beams, rafters and purlins. The south aisle roof also appears to be a 20th-century renewal, but the north aisle roof may date from the 16th century and has chamfered rafters and a moulded ridge and principals. The north wall of the chancel contains two chamfered recesses with ogee arches, each set with a moulded bracket. Between them is a vestry doorway with a moulded Tudor arch and ribbed plank door.

The boarded roof within the organ chamber has three shallow iron-strapped king-post trusses. A lead font dating from circa 1200 sits on a moulded octagonal base and is ornamented with 20 figures of men clad in flowing drapery, set within semicircular arches. Boards painted with the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments are hung above the tower arch. The chancel screen, moved from the north aisle to its present position in the 1860s, dates from 1511 and is of oak with Perpendicular tracery and a central Tudor archway. The pulpit is of 17th-century oak panelling.

The south aisle contains an alabaster tomb chest with effigies of Thomas Babington (died 1518) and his wife. The sides of the chest are decorated with crocketed ogee archways containing figures of saints, angels, and mourners. Two early 16th-century brasses are located at the east end of the chancel.

Wall monuments include one to Francis Parkes (died 1713) to the east of the south doorway, which has a cartouche, carved cherubs, and a cameo bust of a man. Late 19th and early 20th-century stained glass windows include one in memory of John Lee (died 1915) featuring figures of three saints.