Parish Church Of All Saints

Parish Church of All Saints

This is a parish church dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, with an early 18th-century tower and 19th-century restoration work. The building is constructed of flint rubble with limestone and clunch dressings, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. The chancel and east wall of the west tower are early 13th-century work. The south arcade, south aisle, and south porch date from the 15th century. The west tower was built in 1732 of red brick in Flemish bond with limestone dressings and a shingled spire. The north aisle, north porch, and north vault are 19th-century additions.

The chancel contains a mainly 19th-century east window. The north wall features two early 14th-century windows with two-centred heads, Y-tracery and moulded labels, both much restored; further east is a blocked 13th-century lancet visible externally. Two further 14th-century doorways are present in the north wall, with a 19th-century doorway to the north vault between them. The south wall contains two similar windows, also much restored. The chancel arch is 19th-century work; above it is a small window with a segmental head, plastered and visible only from the east. The chancel roof comprises 17 couples with collars, soulaces and ashlar-pieces, all tenoned, dating from the 13th or 14th century.

The nave features a 19th-century north arcade of four bays. The south arcade consists of four bays with two-centred arches of two wave-moulded orders, octagonal piers with concave faces and moulded capitals and bases, and responds with attached half-columns. The nave roof is similar to the chancel roof but was boarded to the soffit in the 19th century.

The early 19th-century north vault is constructed of red brick with limestone dressings; the plinth is in English bond with a stone string course, and Flemish bond above. The north gable features a trefoiled stone vent and a blank stone panel above. Each side has a blank recess with a two-centred Gothick head of gauged brick and brick diagonal buttresses.

The south aisle was constructed in the 15th century and much restored in 1857; all visible detail is 19th-century work.

The west tower comprises a 13th-century east wall of stone rubble. The doorway in this wall has jambs and a two-centred arch of three moulded orders. The two-fold doors are of lapped planks of wedge-section, with one plank of each having an ornamented perforation, on restored rear frames and hinges, fitted with a wrought iron escutcheon plate and twisted drop-handle of uncertain date. Above the doorway on the west side is a recess with chamfered jambs and two-centred arch. In the bell-chamber is a 13th-century window with a two-centred head and label, blocked on the west side.

The remainder of the west tower, built in 1732, is of brick with projecting alternate stone quoins, arranged in three stages with three stone bands and a brick band below the eaves. The west wall contains a round-arched doorway with alternating quoins, projecting keystone, plain overlight, and a pair of fielded three-panelled pine doors. Above it is a scrolled and pedimented plaque inscribed "Spatio Vetusto Fessa - Ruinam dedi - Duabusq elapsis Messibus - Tertia Johanne Scott et - Daniele Stammers - Aedibus - Spectatior Surrexi - Antonio Goud Latomo: Anno Sal: Humanae 1732". In the second stage is a round-headed window with alternating quoins, and above it a clockface on a scrolled panel. In the third stage or bell-chamber is a similar window, louvred. In the north side of the first stage, and north and south sides of the second stage, are blank windows with straight stone jambs, flat heads and keystones; in the last is a sundial with an arched head, Greek inscription and scrolled brackets. In the north and south sides of the bell-chamber are windows similar to that in the west side.

Inside the tower, in the north wall, are five mortar panels inscribed by parishioners (who may be identified in the register), some in doggerel verse, and a stone panel inscribed by two more; in the west wall over the doorway is a panel with Greek inscription. A straight stair with open treads, moulded string, plain post and handrail rises to the second stage. This floor is of re-used oak joists of horizontal section. The spire is broached, essentially of original construction but repaired in 1945 after damage by lightning.

The early 15th-century south porch is timber-framed with 19th-century base walls of stone rubble and limestone dressings 1.50 metres high. It is in one bay with an elaborate crownpost roof. Each side contains continuous windows of six lights with moulded mullions and cinquefoiled tracery. The outer doorway has hollow-moulded jambs and a four-centred arch with spandrels carved with quatrefoils and mouchettes. To each side is a single light with cinquefoiled tracery. The outer tiebeam is moulded and crenellated, much weathered. In the king stud is a trefoiled niche. The original bargeboards are cusped and carved with quatrefoils; the gable is infilled with rebated boards. The wallplates are moulded; the roof has curved soulaces to every rafter couple, a moulded inner tiebeam, moulded axial braces, a moulded inner crownpost and a moulded collar-purlin. This porch, like the south aisle, was probably built by John Rochester, who died in 1444.

The church contains eight bells, the third by Miles Graye of 1623, and a sanctus bell. In the east wall of the south aisle are two brasses: (1) of William Rochester, 1558, and Elizabeth his wife, 1556, with kneeling figures of a man in civil dress, wife, six sons and four daughters, and two shields of arms with some original colour, set in a tablet of Purbeck marble with two round arches and moulded rim; (2) of John Rochester, 1584, with inscription, kneeling figures of a man in civil dress, two wives, four sons and eight daughters, and three shields of arms with some original colour, set in a tablet of Purbeck marble with moulded rim. In the floor of the south aisle are two large brasses of a man in early Tudor armour with a slit mail skirt, and a woman in pedimental head-dress, with two shields of arms and two indents for mouth-scrolls, believed to be of Robert Rochester, 1508, and his wife Elizabeth.

The communion rail is 18th-century, with moulded rail and sill and turned and twisted balusters. The font has an octagonal bowl of Purbeck marble with each face showing two shallow sunk and pointed panels, dating from the early 13th century, and a 19th-century stem and shafts. On the jambs of the west doorway are 15th-century graffiti of two shields and an illegible black-letter inscription. In the nave are floor-slabs to Charles Phillips, vicar of the parish, 1801, and to William Goodday, vicar of the parish, 1848, and other members of his family. On the south wall of the south aisle is a tablet to Philip Stotherd, 1739, and Frances his wife, with fluted pilasters, moulded architrave and scrolled brackets. In the tower is a clock by Jonathan Draper, 1793, with a face dated 1812.