Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a parish church dating from 1860-62, designed by G.E. Street. It is constructed of squared and coursed rubble with pink bands, ashlar quoins, dressings, and buttresses, with machine tile roofs and hipped east end. The church is built in the late 13th/early 14th century style, comprising a short five-bay nave, a two-bay chancel with a canted sanctuary, a south porch, a north vestry, and a north tower.

The west gable of the nave features a rose window. The south side has three windows of varying design; the leftmost has three cusped lights surmounted by trefoils within a circle and a truncated circle and trefoil above. The central window has three lights with cinquefoiled and trefoiled heads, surmounted by a large sexfoil within a circle. The rightmost window features three trefoil-headed lights with intersecting tracery. A gabled porch on the west incorporates a trefoil-headed entrance arch within a pointed arch with polychrome voussoirs, and above, a niche containing a statuette of Jesus the Good Shepherd, dated 1949. This is flanked by a pointed, roll, and fillet moulded south doorway with polished limestone nook shafts and stiff-leaf capitals. The north side of the nave has five simple lancet windows.

The chancel has paired lancets with plate tracery to the east and south sides; quatrefoils are located high up on the south side in lieu of windows. There are paired north side windows either side of the chimney. The cylindrical north tower has a conical roof and paired lancet belfry openings with plate tracery.

Inside, the pointed chancel arch is decorated with dog tooth and fleurons, springing from short marble capitals standing on corbels with stiff-leaf capitals and carved angels. The nave roof features cusped arch braced collars, double purlins, a ridge piece, and cusped wind braces. There is a sedilia of three pointed arches, and a piscina with stiff-leaf capitals to the nook shafts, and a shouldered head. A similar alcove is located on the north side of the chancel. A reredos was designed by Street.

The church contains a marble font by Street, with carving by Thomas Earp, featuring a carved bowl with angels holding reversed jars (symbolizing the four Rivers of Paradise) in a style inspired by Giovanni Pisano. A stone and marble pulpit, also by Street, is decorated with foliage, semi-precious stones, and coloured glass, standing on squat columns. Four iron chandeliers are in the nave, and there is a decorative wrought-iron screen to the organ, also by Street. Other fittings include choir stalls, altar rails with decorative ironwork, brass candle holders, and a brass lamp above the altar rail. The organ case is also by Street. Stained glass is the work of Clayton and Bell.

The church represents a virtually complete masterpiece within a group of buildings in Denstone designed by Street around 1860, commissioned by Sir Thomas Percival Heywood.