Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a parish church dating back to the early 14th century, displaying Decorated architectural style with later Perpendicular features and a Victorian restoration. It is constructed of coarse ironstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The church comprises a west tower with a spire, a nave with a north aisle and clerestory, and a chancel.

The three-stage west tower has a plinth, slender buttresses, and a doorway with a chamfered archway and hoodmould featuring heavy label stops. A trefoiled light sits above the doorway, and paired lights are present in the bell chamber, along with a large clock face. The broach spire features two tiers of lucarnes and pinnacles at each angle. The nave’s windows have been renewed in the Victorian period, using a Perpendicular style; those on the south side have squared, stilted hood moulds and are of two lights. The south-eastern window is of three lights with a segmentally arched head and hood mould. A Victorian porch shelters the south door, which has a 14th-century inner doorway with a hood mould springing from corbel heads carved with primitive faces. The clerestory has two windows of two lights each, with a sill band. The chancel’s exterior is entirely Victorian, again in Perpendicular style, with a steep Swithland slate roof. It includes cresting, a coped east gable, and a cross finial. The north aisle also has windows in Perpendicular style, likely much restored, with the two westernmost windows contained within concave recesses. A blocked 14th-century north door retains a small chamfered archway and hood mould with label stop heads.

Inside, the wide west tower arch is triple chamfered, featuring an outer hood mould with corbel heads and inner semi-octagonal shafts. The north arcade has four bays with double chamfered arches; the inner arch springs from a semi-circular shaft, while the outer arch continues uninterrupted to ground level, with the shaft and abaci projecting from the inner face. Simple chamfered arches define the south door and blocked north doorway. A wide south-east window is set within a full-height recess. The nave roof dates from the 1864 restoration by Goddard, displaying cambered tie beams with dentils. The aisle roof is similar, with surviving corbel heads from the medieval roof, boldly and somewhat grotesquely carved. The chancel arch is particularly unusual—made of wood, it functions as the westernmost truss of the chancel’s roof, incorporating a steeply cambered truss with fretwork decoration at the apex, with boarded walls surrounding it. Other chancel roof trusses are of a similar design with a dentilled wallplate. A north vestry extends from the north aisle. The church’s interior is characterized by flamboyant Victorian fittings, including chancel tiles, rails, sconces, choir stalls, and a low wood screen. Contemporary pulpit, nave seating, and a vestry screen complete the Victorian alterations. The font is likely from the 13th or 14th century, an octagonal basin with simple moulding on an octagonal base.