Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Peatling Magna

A parish church with dateable features largely from the 13th century, though the fabric appears to be largely a single build incorporating several examples of Perpendicular work and conservative restoration dating to 1906. The building is constructed in small rubble or cobble with ashlar dressings, featuring a leaded nave roof and Welsh slate to the chancel.

The church comprises a west tower and spire, nave and chancel. The tower is a massive three-stage structure rising from an ashlar plinth with angle buttresses, each stage recessed slightly. The west face has a lancet window, while the first stage displays paired bell chamber lights with a central shaft and plate tracery. A corbel table sits above, and an embattled parapet with thin angle pinnacles crowns the tower. The spire is recessed with two tiers of lucarnes.

The south nave wall retains a renewed plate tracery light to the south-west, a simple chamfered arched doorway, and two Early English windows with intersecting tracery forming two and three lights respectively, with hood moulds. A continuous sill band and central buttress run along this wall. The steep pitch of the former nave roof is visible in outline in the east wall of the tower.

The buttressed chancel features plate tracery to its south-west window and a Perpendicular window of three principal lights with smaller upper trefoiled lights set in a chamfered segmental headed arch. The east wall appears to be a rebuild, composed largely of five lancets dating to circa 1906. A steeply arched and chamfered Priest's door opens to the north, beside a Perpendicular window of two principal lights with smaller upper lights. The north nave windows are also Perpendicular, of two and three lights, set beneath square headed stilted hood moulds. A north porch added circa 1906 features an exaggeratedly ogivally arched doorway with chamfered jambs; the door itself, likely 18th or 19th century, consists of paired panelled doors.

Internally, the 1906 restoration involved removal of all plasterwork in the scrape tradition. A continuous triple chamfer marks the tower arch. The large space beneath the tower houses substantial fragments of a 14th-century screen with moulded ribs and a dentilled rail above the lower panels, some decorated with applied tracery. Later 16th-century balusters were added, and further 17th-century panelling with turned balusters appears on the west and north walls.

The nave roof, a fine example of local woodcarving tradition, dates to the 15th century. It features shallow pitch with moulded tie-beams, purlins and ridge piece. Each tie bears a central boss carved exuberantly with grinning heads and heavy foliage. The screen wall to the chancel and chancel arch are Victorian, as is the boarded wagon roof of the chancel.

A tomb recess in the north wall displays a wide shallow trefoiled arch deeply moulded with a dogtooth hood mould, capped by a coat of arms. In front of it stands an unrelated tomb chest of 1614 in alabaster. Commemorating William Jervis and his two wives, Anne and Frances, it features incised effigies of the three figures on the slab with elaborate overall detailing. The base bears carved frontal figures of the five children of Anne and William with distorted proportions but highly detailed costume rendering. To the east is another tomb chest from the same school, dated 1597, in memory of William and Catherine Jervis, again with richly detailed incised effigies on the slab. William lived to 94 and fathered numerous children, represented as frontal figures on two sides of the base: four shrouded children flanking a male figure on the west face, and on the south side four boys, a man, three girls, a woman and two shrouded figures. Again proportions are distorted but detail is comprehensive. A wall tomb four years later than the latest chest adopts a vastly different style, showing two ample figures kneeling in a predella with an inscription recording their virtues. This commemorates William Jervis (died 1618) and his wife Elizabeth, who commissioned it.

Medieval encaustic tile fragments survive in the chancel, and a north window retains 14th-century stained glass depicting two angels playing harp and trumpet. A south nave window contains stained glass of 1907.

The pulpit dates to 1685 and is handsomely panelled with a sounding board. A series of early 17th-century benches survive, one dated 1604, with concave triangular tops, finials and round arched recessed panels with geometric ornamentation reminiscent of strapwork. One bench is also carved with linen-fold on its inner face. Two earlier and rougher benches remain at the west of the church.

The 13th-century font was modified in the 19th century by the addition of marble shafts supporting a massive undecorated basin.