Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church dating from the 12th century with significant additions and modifications in the 14th and 15th centuries, together with 19th and 20th century restorations. The building is constructed of puddingstone and limestone rubble with fieldstone, and features limestone and clunch dressings. The roof is reed thatched over the nave, slate over the South aisle, and tiles over the chancel. The church comprises a West tower, nave, South aisle, South porch, and chancel.

The West tower is probably 15th century, though the pointed lancets suggest a possible earlier date. It is built mostly of limestone rubble with dressed limestone quoins, arranged in three stages above a chamfered plinth and topped with an embattled parapet. The West window is of clunch, repaired with Ketton stone, and features two cinquefoil lights set within a two-centred arch with hollow moulding. Lancets flank each side of the second stage. The clunch openings with cinquefoil heads flanking the bell stage are very badly worn. Beast gargoyle masks project from the centre of each side of the main cornice.

In the 14th century the South aisle was added to the nave and the North wall was refenestrated. The North wall of the nave is mainly sandstone rubble and probably dates from the 12th century, with a blocked 12th-century window arch. The South aisle contains re-used moulded stones amongst the limestone rubble and fieldstone, and has been repointed. The two and three-light windows are of clunch repaired in Ketton.

The South porch is 18th-century red brick with a moulded outer arch and gabled tiled roof. The inner arch dates from the 16th century, is four-centred, and has a vacant niche above, partly obscured by the porch.

The chancel is 14th century. The South wall has a later two-stage buttress to the chancel arch, which partly conceals the stop of one of the South wall windows. Two 14th-century windows of two lights with reticulated tracery are present, one with a low side opening. A South doorway is set within a two-centred pointed arch. The East wall features a window of about 1924 with five lights and reticulated tracery. Above it in the gable are shafts that are re-used and may date from the original 14th-century rebuild or may have been incorporated in 1924 when the window was renewed.

Interior

The West tower arch is typical Perpendicular work, featuring a two-centred ogee moulded arch on a high base. The South arcade consists of four bays with two-centred double hollow moulded orders; the outer order has broach stops and is set on octagonal columns with capitals and bases. The roof was rebuilt, probably in the 19th century.

The chancel arch is 12th century and retains three attached shafts with scallop capitals, abacus, and moulded bases, though the arch itself is 14th century and two-centred, with double chamfering and broach stops.

A double piscina is located in the South wall of the chancel. Two quatrefoil drains are set in a two-centred arch with cinquefoil cusping to the head. In the North wall of the chancel is a 14th-century wall tomb with running foliate ornament to an ogee arch, containing an effigy of a de L'Isle.

The communion rail with vase-shaped balusters is early 18th century. The pulpit is early 17th century, six-sided with its original tester, though the stem and base are 19th or 20th century.

The East wall of the chancel contains fragments of pre-Conquest coffin slabs carved with interlace work, reset in the wall. The North wall of the nave also retains two Saxon tomb slabs and wall painting of several dates, including earlier work featuring vine leaf tendrils and a figure of Saint Christopher dating from the 15th century.

The font is 12th century, of limestone, and comprises a round basin set on an octagonal stem.