Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Parish church with origins in the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations through the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, and further work in the 19th century. The building was restored in 1877–8 by Evans and Jolly. It is constructed of dressed coursed rubble, ashlar and render, with slate roofs featuring decorative ridges.

The church comprises a tower with spire, nave, aisles, north organ chamber, north vestry, south porch and chancel. The east end features coped gables with single ridge crosses over both the nave and chancel.

The tower is a late 14th-century structure in ashlar, comprising two stages with decorative bands. It stands on a moulded plinth and is angle-buttressed. The tower is embattled with a spire above. The west side contains a single arched 14th-century window of 3 lights with reticulated tracery. The south side has a doorway with 2 rectangular lights above it. The four 14th-century bell chamber openings each contain 2 arched and cusped lights under a flat arch; the north opening lacks a mullion. Below that, on the east side, is a single clock face.

A render and pantile lean-to projects from the west wall of the north aisle. The buttressed north wall is of dressed coursed rubble with a moulded arched doorway featuring a hood mould and label stops. To the left of this are 2 restored 14th-century windows of 3 lights each, with reticulated tracery under a flat arch. The rendered 15th-century clerestory above contains 3 windows, each with 2 arched and cusped lights under a flat arch.

To the left of the north clerestory is the 19th-century organ chamber, built of ashlar with a gabled end and set on a chamfered plinth. It has a single 19th-century arched window of 3 lights with cusped panel tracery, and beneath it is a single trefoil-arched wall tablet.

Further left and slightly set back is the buttressed 19th-century vestry, also on a chamfered plinth. Its east wall contains a single 19th-century arched window with 2 cinquefoil lights.

The east wall of the chancel is rendered with diagonal buttresses. It has a single 19th-century arched window of 3 lights with cusped panel tracery, hood mould and label stops. The rendered south wall of the chancel has 2 19th-century arched windows of 2 lights each, both with cusped panel tracery, hood mould and label stops. A single central arched 19th-century doorway with hood mould and label stops pierces this wall.

The buttressed south aisle is constructed of dressed coursed rubble set on a plinth. Its east wall has a single arched restored 14th-century window of 3 lights with cusped tracery, hood mould and label stops. The south wall contains 3 19th-century windows of 3 lights each with reticulated tracery under a flat arch. The diagonally buttressed gabled porch adjoins to the left, featuring decorative barge boards and a moulded arched 19th-century entrance with hood mould and label stops. The porch side walls each contain a single window with 2 trefoil-arched lights under a flat arch. The entrance features an inner pointed chamfered arched doorway with a double door of pointed arched panels. The west wall of the south aisle has a single small lancet window. Its clerestory matches that of the north aisle.

Interior

The nave contains late 13th-century 4-bay arcades with double-chamfered arches. The piers are quatrefoil with fillets and moulded capitals, the responds being corbels supported on the east side by carved human heads.

A tall chamfered tower arch with broach stops separates the nave from the tower, with a wood and glass screen below. Evidence of nave widening is visible in the off-centre 12th-century double-chamfered chancel arch. The inner order has broach stops and is supported on demi-columns with waterleaf capitals; the outer order rests on jambs of roll moulding.

A double-chamfered chancel/organ chamber arch divides these spaces. To its right is the doorway to the vestry. The south wall contains a doorway with a decorative spandrel. The east wall of the north aisle retains a former window of 3 lights with reticulated tracery. The south wall of the south aisle features an ogee-arched piscina.

The interior furnishings are largely 19th-century, including an ashlar octagonal font with decorated panels and a brass offerings box. An 18th-century wooden chest and a fragment of a shaft piscina decorated with waterleaf capitals survive. Two boards detailing the 10 Commandments and a single board with King Charles' Rules are displayed.

Wall tablets and monuments include one to Mildred Scrimshire (1783), topped with a broken pediment containing an obelisk decorated with a figure, in the south chancel. The north chancel wall holds a tablet to William Lanson (1800), surmounted by a decorative sarcophagus, and a tablet to Catherine Browne (1813). The west nave wall carries a plaque to Thomas Wood Mensing (1836).