Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of outstanding architectural importance, with origins in the early 13th century, substantially developed in the 14th and 15th centuries, and restored in 1873 by James Fowler. The building is constructed from coursed squared limestone rubble and ashlar, with slate and lead roofs.

The church comprises a western tower, a clerestoried nave with aisles, a chancel, and a south porch. The two-stage late 14th-century tower has a moulded plinth, string courses, a parapet, and corner buttresses each decorated with a crocketed ogee featuring beast head corbels halfway up. A beast head and fleuron corbel table runs along the top. The belfry contains two light openings with cusped transoms and ogee heads to the lights, each with a hood mould terminating in human head stops. The fine west doorway is moulded and contains a quatrefoil frieze, flanked by ogee cusped pilasters which would have framed the door but have been cut back when the west window was enlarged. These pilasters are flanked by cusped and crocketed niches. A large four-light 15th-century window above has a hollow moulded surround and panelled tracery.

The lead-roofed 14th-century north aisle has a three-light 15th-century window in its west end with cusped heads to the lights and panel tracery. A moulded plinth and chamfered eaves characterise the aisle. On the north side runs a continuously moulded doorway with two two-light 14th-century windows to its west and three to its east, all in moulded rectangular surrounds with cusped ogee heads to the lights. These are subdivided by stepped buttresses, and a matching window appears at the east end. The battlemented clerestory consists of six three-light 15th-century windows with panel tracery and linked hoods. An octagonal stair turret stands at the east end of the nave.

The coursed squared limestone rubble nave, originally 13th century but partly rebuilt in the 19th century, features a roll-moulded string course and corbel table. The north side has four lancets. The 15th-century east window contains five lights with a deeply moulded surround and panel tracery, flanked by 19th-century buttresses bearing quatrefoils. The south side displays four 15th-century three-light windows with cusped heads and panel tracery. A continuously moulded 14th-century restored priest's door is present on the south side. The south aisle has a three-light reticulated 14th-century east window (restored in the 19th century) and five two-light windows on the south side matching those of the north aisle. A three-light 14th-century reticulated window appears in the west end.

The gabled 14th-century porch has a lead roof, a moulded outer arch with fleurons, octagonal responds, and a quatrefoil frieze to its base. The contemporary inner door is continuously and deeply moulded.

Interior

The 14th-century six-bay nave arcades feature two hollow chamfered orders with octagonal piers, responds, and capitals resting on large circular 13th-century bases. The 15th-century tower arch has a double hollow chamfered arch with octagonal responds. The pitch of the original 14th-century nave roof is fossilized in the tower wall. The early 13th-century chancel arch carries a roll and a square moulding with three collared clustered shafts decorated with stiff leaf foliage. The 15th-century nave roof features moulded principals of queen post construction with arched braces, resting on cambered ties braced to posts supported on carved corbels. Angel supporters with shields ornament the roof.

In the east end of the north aisle, a four-centred arched doorway provides access to the stair turret, with a cusped-headed piscina featuring a projecting octagonal bowl on a corbel and a small trefoil-headed niche adjacent. The south aisle contains a trefoil-headed piscina with a cut-back bowl.

In the chancel, a roll-moulded cill course precedes lancets with shafted and roll-moulded rear arches with foliate capitals. Both side walls retain annular corbels and springing ribs for four bays of 13th-century vault, now vanished. The south wall holds a 14th-century triple sedilia with ogee arches and clustered shafts, a pointed-headed piscina, and a double aumbry with roll-moulded surround. The north wall displays a segmental-headed moulded tomb recess, two moulded pointed-headed openings, and a further single aumbry.

Fittings

A fine 15th-century seven-bay chancel screen features a central bay wider than the others, containing double doors, with traceried panels and brattished segmental transoms with ogee tops and panel tracery. A restored coved canopy rests on fine clustered shafts. A carved and sculptured stone pulpit dates to 1864. A superb 14th-century octagonal sandstone font displays pairs of figures under crocketed ogee niches to each face, with angel supporters to the bowl. The pilastered stem also features figures, a carved base, and rests on three octagonal steps with two kneeling stones.