Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of exceptional historical importance, with architectural elements spanning from the early 13th century through to the 19th century. The building underwent a major restoration in 1889 by the architects Bodley and Garner. It is constructed of coursed and squared limestone rubble with lead roofs.

The church comprises a three-stage western tower, a clerestoried nave with two aisles, a south porch, a chancel, and a former north chapel now serving as a vestry.

The three-stage tower dates from the early to mid-13th century. It is distinguished by two moulded string courses and a fifteenth-century battlemented parapet with corner crocketed pinnacles and stepped clasping buttresses. The south side displays a blocked thirteenth-century double chamfered arch with octagonal responds and capitals. The second stage contains a rectangular light and an open-faced clock. The belfry stage on all four faces features paired two-light pointed openings with circular responds, nook shafts, and annular capitals decorated with hobnail patterning, set beneath pointed arches with hood moulds. The west face carries single tall lancets to the first and second stages and a small stair lancet.

The north aisle is constructed in squared coursed limestone rubble and features a nineteenth-century west lancet, three two-light windows with cusped heads from the nineteenth century, and a plain north door in a nineteenth-century pointed opening. The vestry has a two-light plain window and a nineteenth-century door in a pointed opening.

The clerestory contains three two-light windows with cinquefoil cushed heads, flat arches, and hood moulds with beast-head labels.

The chancel was rebuilt in 1889 by Bodley and Garner in squared limestone rubble. It features a three-light north window, a five-light east window with fourteenth-century style ogee tracery, and on the south side two further three-light windows also in fourteenth-century style. The south aisle has a nineteenth-century three-light east window set within a fifteenth-century surround. Two fourteenth-century south windows contain three lights with ogee heads, set in flat arches with hood moulds and human-head labels. The clerestory on the south side matches that on the north. The south aisle west window is a nineteenth-century lancet.

The south porch dates from the late eighteenth century and has a plain pointed opening with side benches. The thirteenth-century inner doorway features a triple chamfered arch with hood mould having foliate stops, paired nook shafts with foliate annular capitals. The door itself is nineteenth-century with carved panels.

Interior

The north and south arcades each contain three bays. The easterly pairs of bays date from the mid-thirteenth century and feature attached clustered shafts terminating in stiff-leaf capitals with circular abaci, double chamfered arches, and hood moulds. The westernmost arches are early thirteenth-century with simple half-round reveals, circular moulded capitals, and double chamfered arches with hood moulds. The tower arch matches the westerly bays with attached semi-circular reveals, nook shafts, and a double chamfered arch with roll moulding between the chamfers. Inside the tower, double chamfered arches open into the aisles; the southern one is now blocked. The tower west window has a double rear arch. Buttresses project into the aisle spaces with chamfered angles terminating in foliate stops.

The mid-thirteenth-century chancel arch features attached shafts with bold stiff-leaf capitals and a double chamfered arch with moulded hood.

In the south aisle is a thirteenth-century piscina with a pointed arch, and two statue brackets are positioned in the east wall. In the north aisle is a fourteenth-century double chamfered arch leading to the former north chapel, with octagonal responds and capitals.

The nineteenth-century nave roof is arch-braced, whereas the south aisle retains a sixteenth-century roof with massive tie beams and staggered butt purlins. In the chancel north wall is a broad nineteenth-century opening with a cambered head leading to the vestry, and beyond this a nineteenth-century recut fourteenth-century doorway. The south wall contains an elaborate nineteenth-century sedilia and piscina with a re-used fifteenth-century kneeling angel finial.

The twentieth-century altar incorporates the medieval altar stone with consecration crosses. In the spandrels of the nave arcades are substantial fragments of an elaborate thirteenth-century scheme of painted decoration featuring foliate roundels, flowers, and a chequered border. The aisles contain late seventeenth-century softwood panelling. The altar rails and table in the south aisle date from a similar period.

The octagonal nineteenth-century font is a high-quality copy of a late medieval original. The nave contains two fine early eighteenth-century candelabra. Late nineteenth-century stained glass is found in the chancel and south aisle.

Monuments

In the south aisle is a limestone wall plaque commemorating Dorothy Nethercootes, who died in 1603. It is a rectangular panel with settings for semi-precious stones, surmounted by two obelisks and a circular panel of arms. At the west end of the north aisle are two painted benefaction boards dated 1786 and 1787.