Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of medieval origin, with major construction phases spanning the 12th to 16th centuries. The building underwent substantial restoration and chancel rebuilding in 1894 by the prominent architects Bodley and Garner. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble and ashlar with lead roofs.

The church comprises a western tower, nave, north and south aisles, chancel, south porch and vestry. The 14th-century tower rises in three stages and features a plinth, two moulded string courses, and an embattled parapet with angle and mid-wall pinnacles topped with grotesque water chutes. Corner buttresses rise only to the first stage. The pointed west door has a moulded surround with hood mould and human head stops. The first floor contains a 16th-century three-light window with concave moulded reveal and hood mould, above which is a plain narrow light and an open-faced clock at second-floor level. The belfry stage has two-light cusped ogee-headed louvred openings with chamfered reveals, hood moulds, and human head stops on each face. A stair tower occupies the north-east angle.

The north aisle displays a 15th-century three-light window flanked by single two-light windows with ogee heads and flat hood moulds. The clerestorey contains three pairs of lights with flat hood moulds. The 19th-century vestry has a parapet, four-light window and pointed doorway. In the north wall of the chancel is a three-light 13th-century geometric window, relocated from the east end during the 1894 restoration. The east end of the chancel is largely blank except for an empty ogee-headed niche flanked by single shields bearing the sacred nomogram. The chancel's south side is faced in ashlar with three bays divided by buttresses, each containing three-light 19th-century curvilinear windows with unusual surrounds featuring fleurons. Beneath these windows is a priest's door. The south aisle's 15th-century east window has three lights with trefoil heads and two tiers of paired mouchettes, flat hood mould and human head stops. The fenestration of the south aisle otherwise mirrors that of the north aisle, with three two-light clerestorey windows with cusped trilobe heads, flat hood moulds and chamfered reveals. The 19th-century porch features a stepped parapet containing an empty niche above a three-centred arched entrance. The inner doorway is set within a restored late 13th-century opening with angle shafts, foliate capitals, circular abaci and roll moulding to the head; the hood mould is 19th-century work.

Interior: The late 12th-century north arcade comprises four bays, with the westernmost bay a nearly contemporary addition. The circular piers have unusually shaped and moulded abaci, waterleaf and other foliate capitals, and double-chamfered arches. The west respond is formed as a bracket with three scrolled corbels. The 13th-century south arcade has four bays with octagonal piers and capitals with two chamfered orders. The hood mould retains two surviving human head stops. The 14th-century tower arch has two chamfered orders dying into its reveals. At the base of the tower stands a 14th-century panelled door to the stairs. The chancel arch was removed during the 19th-century restoration. In the south aisle is a 13th-century half-engaged pillar piscina with octagonal head and base and pointed recess. Doorways to the vestry, with 19th-century moulded surrounds, open from the north aisle and chancel. At the east end stands a carved stone reredos with a painted panelled triptych by G. Jackson of 1903. The timber roofs date from the 19th-century restoration and display elaborate painted designs; the nave roof retains one reused boss. The chancel screen and painted and gilded rood, along with the other fittings including a fine cast iron candelabrum in the chancel, are products of Bodley and Garner's work. The stained glass, by Burlison and Grylls, was not completed until 1926.

Monuments: The south aisle contains a roundel with a recut female head dating to around 1300, and a 14th-century full-length brass to a member of the D'Alison family, depicting the deceased in plate armour with feet resting on a lion, beneath an ogee canopy. The brass was reset around 1549 above the tomb chest of William and George D'Alison. The chest has blank lozenge panels with a wide scroll along each side and a blank lead inscription. The north aisle holds a tomb to Hugo Meynell Ingrams, featuring a marble effigy asleep, carved by Thomas Woolner and dated 1874. A white marble plaque bearing the Meynell arms is set into the chancel floor.