Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This parish church dates from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, with restoration in the 1880s, an addition in 1887, and further restoration in 1970. It is built of coursed rubble and ashlar with slate roofs featuring coped east gable and embattled parapets to the aisles and clerestoreys.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles with south porch, and chancel.

The tower, built around 1482, consists of five stages and stands on a plinth with a string course above it. Four further string courses run up the tower, and four clasping buttresses support the corners. The west face contains a doorway with blind flowing tracery beneath a moulded arch with hood mould and label stops. The spandrel displays decorative carved shields and carved heads. Above this is a four-light arched panel with tracery. The fourth stage has arched windows with single mullion and two arched transoms on all but the east wall. The south side has a single small light to the first, second and third stages, and two lights to the fourth stage. Similar lights appear on the third, fourth and fifth stages of the west wall, with the second stage having two lights. The bell chamber features four pairs of two-light openings with tracery and cusping, each pair surmounted by a single ogee arch and finial. The spandrel has blind panel tracery. The parapet is embattled with corner and centre merlons rising to crocketed pinnacles. A frieze of shields set in lozenges runs beneath, with decorated shields to the west and south-east. At each corner is a gargoyle.

The north aisle has a three-light west window beneath a four-centred arch with hood mould. The aisle is buttressed with angle buttresses to the east, set on a plinth with string course. A doorway has chamfered shafts and plain capitals supporting a moulded pointed arch with an arched niche above. To the east are two three-light windows beneath four-centred arches with hood moulds. The east wall has an early 14th-century three-light arched window with flowing tracery, surrounded by an outer order of single engaged colonnettes with moulded capitals and hood mould.

The clerestorey, dating from around 1482, has three three-light windows beneath four-centred arches with hood moulds.

The north chancel has a single buttress with an engaged capital bearing worn decoration on its west side. To the west is an arched three-light window with cusping and three quatrefoils contained in circles. East of this is a blocked doorway and a blocked niche. Above are two corbels that would have supported the roof of a former chapel. The east wall has gabled and coped angle buttresses rising to the eaves, and a large window dating from around 1330 with seven lights beneath an arch with flowing tracery. The lights are separated by engaged colonnettes with moulded capitals, with hood mould and label stops above.

The south chancel is buttressed, set on a plinth, and has three three-light arched windows with quatrefoils in circles and cusping. Each window surround has an outer order of engaged colonnettes with moulded capitals supporting a moulded arch, hood mould and label stops. The eastern window has its base blocked, and the south doorway breaks into the centre window. The doorway has three engaged colonnettes with moulded capitals supporting a moulded arch with hood mould and label stops. A string course runs under the windows, interrupted by the door, and extends under the east window of the south aisle.

The south aisle is buttressed with angle buttresses to the east and west. It has two three-light windows beneath four-centred arches with hood moulds and label stops. A string course runs under the windows and over a blocked arch, continuing under the east window of the porch. The clerestorey has three three-light windows beneath four-centred arches with hood moulds.

The south porch, built in 1887, is angle-buttressed with a coped gable, kneelers and ridge cross. The east and west walls have arched single-light windows with cusping, hood mould and label stops. The central doorway is flanked by three engaged colonnettes with moulded capitals on either side, the centre one bearing foliate decoration. The inner arched doorway has a chamfered surround with two engaged moulded capitals supporting an arch broken at the apex and rising to a niche.

Interior

The nave has arcades of three bays. The late 13th-century north arcade comprises octagonal piers with moulded capitals supporting double-chamfered pointed arches with a dogtooth-decorated hood mould with head label stop to the south-west, the south-east capital bearing an inverted fleur-de-lys. The south arcade, dating from around 1330, has octagonal piers and responds with moulded capitals and nailhead decoration on all but the western respond, supporting double-chamfered arches with hood mould. To the north are two decorated corbels.

The tower arch has an inner order of engaged columns with moulded capitals and bell-shaped bases. Either side of the arch is an ashlar column with moulded and chamfered base rising the full height of the clerestorey. The double-chamfered arch separating nave and chancel is supported on each side by a column of three shafts with moulded capitals.

An early 16th-century screen with tracery and cusping stands beneath this arch, with elevation squints in the wainscot. Evidence of a removed rood-loft parapet remains on the north wall of the nave. The south-east arcade wall has a piscina with cusped interior and ogee arch. In the north-east corner is a niche containing a 16th-century angel. The south wall has a piscina with moulded arch. The south-east corner has a recessed niche, and a further niche exists in the north-east corner. Evidence on the south wall of the south aisle indicates it was heightened.

The south wall of the chancel features a fine and exceptionally elaborate stone-carved double piscina and tripartite sedilia. The north wall has a doorway, founder's tomb and Easter Sepulchre of similar celebrated quality. The tomb contains a damaged cross-legged chain-mailed effigy of Sir Robert de Compton.

Several 18th-century floor stones are preserved, including stones in the north aisle to Alexander Holden (c.1769), Mary Holden (c.1746) and William Deeping (c.1756), and in the south aisle to Mary and William Sampey (c.1791) and John Deeping (c.1794). The north wall of the north aisle bears an elaborate and fine monument to the Holdens, dated c.1769.

The octagonal 14th-century font is shaped like a capital and pier top, with a 19th-century base. The benches are 17th-century, restored in the 19th century. The pulpit is 19th-century. Stone corbels support the nave roof. The nave and north aisle roofs have bosses.