Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a parish church largely dating to the 13th, 14th, and 19th centuries, situated on Church Hill in Knipton. The church comprises a 13th-century west tower and a 14th-century chancel, with a nave and north aisle added in the mid-13th century. The south aisle was constructed in 1869 by W. Thompson of Grantham, following a restoration in 1845-46. The building is constructed of ironstone with limestone dressings, and features a copper nave roof (dated 1965), with the remainder of the roof covered in lead. The west tower is four stages high with clasping buttresses, and incorporates flat subsidiary buttresses to the north, south, and west. A lancet window is set into the west buttress, with further lancets flanking the south buttress and in the ringing chamber. The belfry stage is late 14th century, featuring limestone and two-light 19th-century windows. The north aisle has two-light windows with trefoil heads and encircled quatrefoil vesicas, extending to the east end of the chancel, which contains a three-light east window. The south aisle windows are two and three-light, and the chancel east window is four-light Perpendicular. Inside, a three-bay arcade features lozenge piers with sunk quadrant mouldings to the north and south, and engaged shafts with capitals east and west. The south arcade dates to 1869. The tower arch is double-chamfered, springing from polygonal responds with polygonal capitals and bases. An octagonal font has a plain stem and bowl with four arches and niches, along with faces and lobed globular ornaments beneath the bowl. The chancel arch is double-chamfered, set on circular responds with waterholding bases. The nave roof is 19th-century, constructed with principals on arched braces dropping through wall posts to corbels, featuring traceried spandrels, a moulded ridge piece, and butt purlins. A north chancel chapel is entered from the chancel through a semi-circular, double-chamfered arch, supported by circular responds on waterholding bases with undercut drum capitals, nailhead decoration, and a dog-tooth hood mould. The chapel contains a 13th-century trefoiled piscina. The chancel roof is 19th-century, of a similar design to the nave but without traceried spandrels. Surviving furnishings include two late 15th-century poppyhead benches and two further bench ends. Set into the west wall of the south porch is an alabaster slab commemorating John Eyre, dating to 1558, depicting an incised figure of an infant in swaddling clothes with a surrounding inscription.