Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Church built 1835–1837 by Thomas Rickman at the expense of Reverend William Clarke. Constructed in limestone ashlar in the Gothic Revival style. The building comprises a tall narrow chancel and aisled nave in one, with a west tower and east vestries. The roofs are hidden by crenellated nave and moulded aisle parapets.

The chancel is one bay, the nave four bays. A moulded splayed plinth runs around the building, with buttresses of four offsets. The nave and chancel have angle buttresses rising into short square pinnacles with caps. The 5-light east window has geometrical tracery and a hood mould with head stops, swelling out at the apex to enclose a quatrefoil opening and surmounted with a finial. The aisles have diagonal buttresses. The 2-light aisle windows and exceptionally tall chancel windows have curvilinear tracery. The clerestory has round windows with alternating geometrical and curvilinear tracery, all with hood moulds carrying foliage stops.

Low vestries occupy the angles at the east. The north-east vestry has a segmental-arched north door and brattished parapet, with a traceried straight-headed 2-light east window. The south-east vestry has a moulded parapet and similar east window.

The west front features a tall central tower of three stages with full-height angle buttresses, a moulded parapet and remains of pinnacles. A Decorated style portal has piers with blind tracery and gablets, and a large crocketed gable with finial. The doorway has three moulded orders. Double-leaf glazed doors carry cast-iron Gothic tracery. The north side of the tower has two small lancets, the south side a straight-headed traceried window. String courses divide the stages. The second stage has a lancet with mouchettes to all sides and a clock face with hood mould to the north. The third stage has tall 2-light bell openings with crocketed ogee hood moulds. The west fronts of the aisles have a trefoiled lancet and a round window above, with geometrical and curvilinear tracery to north and south respectively, all beneath lean-to roofs.

Interior

The interior is plastered throughout. A 2-storey porch inside the tower has two tiers of chamfered arches forming an open arcade to the first floor, with a balcony featuring a cast-iron Gothic tracery balustrade and plaster ribbed ceiling. Double-leaf doors provide entry to the church, with a Charities board above the outer doors.

The church has plaster quadripartite rib vaulting throughout, with wall shafts and foliage corbels. The shallow raised chancel has stone panelling with blind reticulated tracery to sill height. The taller canted angles have crocketed gables and cinqfoiled arches with paintings dated 1920 to the left and 1918 to the right. North and south sides have sedile with attached shafts and cusped stilted segmental arches.

The arcades have stone piers with half-shafts and hexagonal bases, with arches of two moulded orders. The clerestory has panels of blind Perpendicular tracery below the windows. All windows have hood moulds.

A west gallery of stone runs the full width of the church and is entirely independent of the arcades, standing on a 7-bay arcade of moulded stilted segmental arches with octagonal shafts. The gallery front has a blind quatrefoil frieze, and a large moulded blind tower arch.

Fittings

The stone reading desk and pulpit have castellated turrets with blind tracery and blind Perpendicular tracery panels, with lecterns on carved brackets. The polygonal pulpit has a large moulded and carved round base. An octagonal stone font below the gallery has cinqfoiled ogee niches, shafts and buttresses. The aisles retain some box pews.

Stained glass in the chancel south window includes a 17th-century panel of Christ at Emmaus with tabernacle work of around 1840.

Monuments

In the chancel south, a monument to Reverend William Daniel Clarke (died 1817), vicar, who 'provided for reconstruction of the church'. It is a sarcophagus with religious still-life, signed by J. Bacon and S. Manning. In the south aisle east, a marble monument to Samuel Taylor (died 1752) with an open pediment on brackets and an eared panel.

The church is virtually unaltered and complete.