Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

The Church of All Saints at Barrowby is a parish church of Grade I listed status. It dates mainly from the 14th century, with fragments from the 13th century and a 15th-century south porch. The building was restored in 1854 and 1889, with an organ chamber and vestry added in 1870.

The church is constructed of coursed squared ironstone and limestone ashlar with Welsh slate and Westmorland slate roofs. It displays both Decorated and Perpendicular architectural styles, with pointed-arched windows and hood moulds throughout.

The building comprises a chancel, vestry and organ chamber, a nave with aisles, a south porch, and a west tower with spire.

The chancel dates to the mid and late 14th century and spans 2 bays. It features a coped east gable with a cross and a late 14th-century 3-light window with panel tracery. The south side has a 2-light window with cusped heads of mid-14th-century date and a larger 3-light window with panel tracery from the late 14th century. Between these windows sits a blocked early 13th-century priest's door with a trefoil head. The north side has a lean-to vestry with a reset 13th-century doorway to the north and an east window with Y-tracery. The organ chamber has a central buttress flanked to the east by a single lancet and to the west by a traceried 2-light window.

The nave dates to the 14th century and has a coped east gable with a 19th-century trefoil round window, an external gable stack, and a cross.

The buttressed south aisle extends across 4 bays and has a coped parapet with a ballflower frieze and gargoyles. It contains three mid-14th-century windows with different patterns of flowing tracery and a single lancet at its west end.

The north aisle dates to the 13th and late 14th centuries. It has three late 14th-century 3-light windows with panel tracery. A blocked 14th-century north door with double chamfers is present, and the west end features a 13th-century 2-light window with trefoil above.

The south porch has a coped gable with a cross and a renewed figure in a niche over a 13th-century double-chamfered door with hood mould. On either side stands a small 13th-century 2-light pointed-arched window.

The square west tower is arranged in 3 stages with diagonal west buttresses, the lowest stage being gabled. It has a moulded plinth, string courses, a ballflower frieze with gargoyles, and a crenellated parapet. To the west is an early 13th-century single lancet with hood mould. Above this are single flat-headed lights on each side. The bell stage features on each side a 2-light pointed-arched bell opening with Decorated tracery and hood mould. A set-back octagonal spire rises above, with 2 tiers of gabled lucarnes on alternate faces and an 18th-century weathercock.

The interior is rendered and contains a 14th-century double-chamfered chancel arch with octagonal responds. A 15th-century traceried wooden screen has a central portion dating to around 1927. An arch-braced single purlin roof is present. The east end has a 3-light window with stained glass from 1884 and a traceried wooden reredos from 1920. The south side features a 13th-century piscina and triple sedilia, restored in the 19th century, with a blocked doorway flanked by stained-glass windows of 1898 and 1904 (the latter by Heaton, Butler & Bayne). The north side has a blocked 13th-century doorway with shafts and a gabled-head aumbry to the east, and a 19th-century 2-bay arcade in 14th-century style to the west.

The nave has a 19th-century arch-braced hammer beam roof. The 14th-century arcades extend across 4 bays with double-chamfered arches, hood moulds, octagonal piers and responds. The earlier north arcade preserves a short remnant of wall in its centre.

The south aisle was reroofed in 1889. To the east of the door stands a 14th-century niche. Two windows contain 19th-century patterned stained glass, and one features glass from around 1956 by Francis Skeat.

The north aisle has a stained-glass window to the east from around 1913 with a 14th-century tomb recess below it, and a window to the west from around 1935 by Heaton, Butler & Laneton. The east end contains a segmental arch enclosing a blank lancet from the 19th century.

The tower arch dates to the 14th century and has ballflower capitals, hood mould and mask stops. The tower chamber contains a 13th-century west window with stained glass from 1937.

Fittings include an outstanding 14th-century font with a pierced octagonal stem enclosing a devil and an elaborately traceried bowl. An octagonal traceried oak pulpit dates to the 19th century and incorporates 15th-century fragments. Mid-19th-century benches and stalls are present, along with a late 19th-century brass lectern and litany desk.

Memorials include brasses to Nicholas Deen (1479) and James Deen and his wife (1508). A wall tablet from 1674 commemorates Dr Hurst, Chaplain to Charles I. Various tablets date from the early and mid-19th century. A brass war memorial tablet with figures and a segmental pediment dates to around 1920.