Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a parish church dating to the 14th century, with a 15th-century tower. It was largely rebuilt in the 1860s by William Smith, with a north porch added in 1897 and the tower rebuilt in 1909 by C A Bassett-Smith. The church is constructed of granite facings, with Attleborough and Ancaster stone dressings, arranged in a slightly polychromatic style. Random rubble stone is used for the tower, which features a dressed stone octagonal spire. Plain slate roofs cover the aisles, nave, and chancel separately.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with north and south aisles, a north porch, and a chancel with a north lean-to vestry. The two-stage west tower is unbuttressed, with crenellated parapets to an octagonal broach spire that has two levels of wooden lucarnes on the cardinal faces. A weather vane is present on the spire, along with a clock face on the north side. The nave roof rises higher than the lower aisle and chancel roofs. There are four aisle windows to the south and north, each slightly different and designed in a vigorous early 14th century style. The gabled north porch, dated 1897, features a wave-moulded outer arch on three orders of columns. The south door has a simpler double hollow-chamfered arch. East windows in the south and north aisles have distinctive designs; the south window is formed of three lights surmounted by three quatrefoils, while the north window consists of three quatrefoils in a roundel. The two-bay chancel has windows only to the south, with its east window designed as three lights surmounted by a roundel of four quatrefoils and flanked by trefoils.

Inside, there are three-bay north and south arcades with polychromatic double-chamfered arches carried on round piers with differing capitals in a French style 13th century style. The tower arch is double-chamfered with an inner roll-moulding on octagonal piers. The fittings are largely from 1860-61 and include pews and a wooden pulpit, as well as a wrought-iron screen designed by William Smith. Stained glass is present, including a window from 1878 by Burlison and Grylls, a Lady Chapel window depicting the Ascension from 1896 by Shrigley and Hunt, and other windows from 1884-1906 by Kempe and Kempe & Co. William Smith’s stone-carver was Poole, and his wood-carver was Forsyth.