Church of All Saints, Hollybush

Church of All Saints, Hollybush

A church designed by Frederick Preedy of Worcester and built by Smart of Malvern Wells in 1869. The chancel was extended by Nicholson & Clarke of Hereford in 1929.

The building is constructed of rock-faced Beaconshill stone brought to course, with Hollington stone ashlar dressings and a tiled gabled roof. The plan comprises a nave and chancel grouped under one roof, with a south-western porch and a western bell-cot above the gable end. A projecting plinth with offset ashlar top surrounds the entire building.

The western front features two lancets in the lower body and a central rose window with plate tracery set in an ashlar surround with a relieving arch. Ashlar quoins mark the corners here and across the building. The gable is finished with kneelers and coping stones. The bell-cot above the gable is buttressed and gabled with a single arched opening and a cross at its apex.

The south front displays the gabled porch at the left and a wide buttress with offsets marking the junction between nave and chancel. The chancel has a single lancet with cusped head to the right of this buttress, and to its left is a similar lancet window with a separate trefoil placed immediately above it within the same ashlar surround. Further left is a two-light window with cusped heads and a quatrefoil at the apex. The gabled porch at the far left has an arched portal with chamfered arch, kneelers and coping, and a cross at the apex. Each side of the porch has a quatrefoil window.

The north front contains a two-light and single lancet to the nave with quatrefoil and trefoil heads respectively, and a single lancet to the chancel. The buttress marking the nave-chancel division supports a chimney which has been decapitated and sealed. Below it stands a vestry with lean-to roof and rendered walls, with a lancet window to its eastern flank which may be reset.

The east front has a central window of three lights with trefoils flanking the head and a hexafoil at the apex. Above this, in the gable, is a blind quatrefoil panel.

The interior contains a wooden roof supported by wall posts rising from large stone corbels. Trusses have arched braces connecting to collar beams which support crown posts. The heavier truss at the nave-chancel division springs from richly carved corbels showing the letters Alpha and Omega with foliage. The cusped arch braces of this truss contain cut-through trefoil patterns. The octagonal stone font and the pulpit, with blind tracery to its outer sides, appear to be original to the church.

An alabaster reredos was apparently added in 1929, though it has the appearance of a later 19th-century work. It comprises three arched panels with a cross at the centre flanked by the Alpha and Omega letters. The panels to either side contain carvings of angels, the right-hand angel holding a lily and the left-hand bearing the Crown of Thorns. A richly carved piscina in the south wall features ferns and lilies in high relief on its lip. The stained glass east window displays the Ascension in its three principal lights, flanked by the Deposition and Christ with Mary in the garden. This window was designed and made by Preedy and was funded by Mary Selwyn and Lady Beauchamp.