Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a fine parish church of the 13th century, with early and late 13th-century work combined with a 15th-century hammer beam roof. It has undergone only minor 19th-century restorations and additions.

The west tower dates from the early 13th century and is built of coursed Barnack ashlar. It is embattled and rises in four stages on a splayed plinth, with three stages of buttressing and a main newel staircase in the south-west corner. At each corner of the bell stage is an octagonal embattled turret. The tower features a moulded main cornice with a corbel table of mask ornament. The west doorway has a round-headed arch of three hollow and roll moulded orders on three recessed shafts. The north and south walls of the ground stage have blind arcading in four bays with two-centred, hollow and roll moulded orders and a continuous roll moulded label. The west window comprises three chamfered lancets above a band of nail-head ornament, and the north and south walls have arcading of three bays and two half bays each. The arches are chamfered and two-centred with continuous moulded labels, and the bays are divided and flanked by banded shafts. The second stage has similar blind arcading of four bays, one pierced, and one half bay on each wall. The bell stage, also early 13th century, has two similar lancet openings with shafted angles in a round-headed arch.

The nave is of rubblestone with Barnack dressings to the windows and has a low-pitched roof of the 15th century, leaded, with a 13th-century corbel table to the eaves. A late 13th-century clerestorey of ten windows on each side features two-centred arches of two chamfered orders with roll moulded labels and mask stops.

The south aisle also dates from the late 13th century and has four windows with two-centred arches of two cinquefoil lights with foiled heads. Two 15th-century windows of three cinquefoil lights with vertical tracery sit in four-centred arches. The south doorway has four hollow and roll moulded orders in a two-centred arch.

The chancel is 13th century with 14th-century fenestration and a steeply pitched roof. The south wall has two trefoil lights with foiled head in a two-centred arch. The east window, restored, has five trefoil lights with a foiled head. The north aisle is 14th century, and a north porch was added in the 19th century. The north doorway is particularly fine, dating from the early 13th century, with seven hollow and roll moulded orders on attached shafts.

Interior features include rear arches to the tower windows which are two-centred and double chamfered on grouped keeled shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The 13th-century main newel staircase in the south-west corner has a gallery at first-floor level leading to a second newel staircase in the north-west corner. On the ground floor in the north-west corner is a small chamber with a ribbed domical roof carried on corbels carved with masks. The arcading to the east wall of the tower is visible in the gable end of the later 13th-century roof. The tower arch is two-centred with two chamfered orders, the inner on responds of half-round, keeled columns.

The nave has north and south arcades of six bays with two-centred arches of two chamfered orders with continuous moulded labels, resting on alternating round and octagonal columns with round and octagonal capitals and holdwater bases. The rear arches of the later 13th-century clerestorey are also chamfered with angle shafts. The roof was raised in the 15th century and is a double hammer-beam roof of ten bays. The jackposts are carved on bullnose stone corbels and the posts, braces and spandrels are moulded and carved, with angels with outspread wings at the termination of the hammer beams. The north aisle also has a 15th-century roof. East of the north and south doorways is a 13th-century demi-pier, probably for a screen. The rear arches of the windows in the south aisle have angle shafts to the chamfered arches. The chancel arch is two-centred with two chamfered orders, the inner on responds of half-octagonal shafts. Above the chancel arch, partly obscured by the hammer beam, is a 13th-century two-centred arch with roll moulding on attached shafts. A 13th-century string course at sill height in the chancel is roll moulded.

The nave floor contains eight slabs of late 17th or early 18th-century date with inscriptions. Late 19th-century glass includes pieces by Thomas Curtis Ward and Hugh of 1898 in the chancel and south aisle. Monuments include a 1766 wall monument to David Waite and Ann, his wife, in the south aisle wall, and 1787 wall monuments to John Goddard and Sarah, his wife.