Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

A church of the 14th and 15th centuries with Norman or possibly Saxon origins. The building was restored by W Millican of Leicester in 1882. It is constructed of coursed and uncoursed limestone and ironstone rubble with limestone dressings. The roof is covered in lead over the nave, aisle and tower, and swithland slate over the chancel, vestry and porch, with ridge tiles throughout.

The church comprises a 2-bay chancel, vestry, nave, south aisle, porch and south-west tower. The chancel has a 3-light east window with renewed reticulated tracery and two 2-light windows to the south, the south-western one a low-side window with transom. Both windows have ogee-arched lights with quatrefoils to the head and hood moulds with label stops. A 19th-century vestry to the north has a similar window and door with ogee-arched heads on its north side.

The nave features a 3-bay clerestory with 2-light windows showing Decorated tracery and hood moulds. A blocked north door with chamfered lintel and a 2-light north-east window with straight head, reticulated tracery and hood mould are present. The north wall below the clerestory is of uncoursed rubble including granite and sandstone. The west front has a 3-light window with 4-centred head, cinquefoil-headed lights and hood mould, and a 3-light clerestory window inserted in the 19th century with Perpendicular-style tracery, hood moulds and label stops.

The south aisle has a 3-light east window and a 3-light south window, both with reticulated tracery and hood moulds, the latter with a straight head. A triple hollow-chamfered south door with hood mould provides entry. A porch with timber structure on low stone walls and barge-boarded gable was added in the 19th century. The aisle has offset buttresses between bays and at angles, with plain stone-coped parapet and a battlemented parapet to the clerestory.

The 3-stage tower has a 2-light window to the bottom stage west with quatrefoil to head and hood mould. Small rectangular 1-light windows light the middle stage, while the bell-chamber has 2-light openings with quatrefoils to heads and hood moulds. Offset clasping buttresses support the tower, which is topped by a battlemented parapet with quatrefoiled lozenge frieze to its base and gargoyles at the angles.

Interior features include a piscina in the chancel with blank trefoiled head and another in the south aisle with chamfered arch and nailhead to hood mould. The nave has a 3-bay south arcade with octagonal piers, double-chamfered arches and a polygonal west respond with carved head corbel at the east end. A blocked round-headed arch above a lower window remains at the west end of the nave. The tower, built within the west end of the south aisle, has double-chamfered arches to east and north with polygonal responds.

The church retains Royal Arms of George IV in oil on canvas. A 19th-century altarpiece in oil on board forms a complete decorative scheme for the chancel, together with panelling and screen to the arch between chancel and vestry. A 17th-century communion table with turned legs, partly renewed, and stretchers is present.

Monuments include a wall monument in the tower of veined white marble to Thomas Hartopp, died 1727, with arms to shaped top and shaped apron. Another wall monument in slate records the benefactions of Mrs Catherine Gregory of Hoby from her will proved 1727. Early to mid-19th-century wall monuments of white marble on slate grounds commemorate members of the Seaman, Burnaby, Cruttall and Pierce families.