Old Church Of All Saints

The Old Church of All Saints is a former parish church, now a consolidated ruin, dating from the 12th to the 19th centuries. It is constructed of a variety of local materials, including limestone, clunch, large cobbles, ironstone, and cement-rendered brickwork. The church comprises a chancel, nave, north aisle, north porch, and a west tower.

The chancel, originally 12th century, has been altered later. It features two small, deeply splayed windows high in the north wall; the easternmost has an external arched lintel stone with three crosses in circles and two saltire crosses. Two late medieval clunch-dressed windows on the south wall are blocked with red brick, flanking a 19th-century brick doorway. The Norman chancel arch has impost bands with some zigzag decoration.

The nave, with 12th-century origins, was extended northwards in the 13th century, likely also westwards. The south wall retains a blocked Norman doorway and a respond for a south aisle that was never completed. Two large, round-headed south windows with wood tracery were inserted in the 1820s, accompanied by buttresses of the same date. A pointed arch window in the west wall is partially blocked, damaged by the tower wall. A 4-centred arched doorway, surmounted by a narrower blocked window, both dating to the 1820s, leads to the tower. A four-bay arcade, with a pointed arch in the west part of clunch and an ironstone section in the east, is heightened above with rubble and brick in the 1820s.

The north aisle, dating to the 13th century, has been reworked later. It contains a blocked pointed arched window to the east, and two large round-arched windows with wood tracery on the north elevation, both dating to the 1820s. A 4-centred arched doorway, also from the 1820s, is present, along with heightened walls of rubble and brick. At the east end is a canopied niche and a doorway leading to a rood staircase. Raised walls and a visible roofline against the tower suggest the 1820s alterations included a single roof covering the nave and aisle.

The north porch was remodelled in the early 19th century, likely from an earlier, probably 14th-century, structure. The west elevation retains a small trefoiled light and a hipped slate roof. The west tower was inserted into the west wall of the church between 1823 and 1826. It is two stages high, with coursed ironstone on the lower stage and cement-rendered brick on the upper stage. It features a round arched window to the west of the lower stage and smaller round-arched windows to the bell stage. The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.