Parish Church Of All Saints

Parish Church of All Saints

A parish church dating from the 12th to 15th centuries, extended and restored in the 19th century. The building is constructed principally of coursed flint rubble containing some brick and tile, with the south wall of the chancel partly of red brick. Limestone and clunch provide dressings throughout, and the roof is covered with handmade red plain tiles. The north vestry is built of gault brick in Flemish bond.

The nave is possibly 12th-century in origin, though it contains no architectural detail of that date, and stands on a Saxon-Norman foundation. The chancel dates from the early 13th century, though its south wall was rebuilt in the early 16th century. A bell-turret was added around 1400, the north vestry in 1823, and a south porch in the 19th century.

The east wall of the chancel is rendered externally and features a stone plaque in the gable dated 1833; the window is 19th-century, as is the diagonal north-east buttress of red brick. Two early 13th-century lancet windows of one light appear in the north wall, both substantially restored externally. The south wall and diagonal south-east buttress display unusual masonry, with erratic courses of large bricks approximately 25 by 16.5 by 4.5 centimetres in stretcher bond, intermixed with flint rubble. One brick is inscribed 'BL GL'.

The south wall of the chancel contains one early 16th-century window of two cinquefoiled lights with a quatrefoil in a 4-centred head; the external jambs and head are deeply moulded, whilst the mullion and outer sill are restored. The internal sill is dropped to form a seat, with a chamfered step enclosing the piscina. A doorway further west has plain internal jambs and a chamfered segmental-jointed rear-arch, entirely restored externally. The chancel roof comprises nine couples framed in seven cants, boarded between them, with crenellated wallplates moulded to a bowtell in great casement. No chancel-arch separates the nave from the chancel. The east gable of the nave is timber-framed and rendered above the roof of the chancel.

The north wall of the nave contains two 15th-century windows, each of two cinquefoiled lights with tracery in a 2-centred head and moulded label; the rear-arches are hollow-moulded. The eastern window's sill is dropped to form a seat and step. Further west is a 14th-century north doorway, now enclosed by the north vestry, with jambs and a 2-centred arch chamfered in two orders. The moulded label retains mutilated head-stops, and above the chamfered segmental rear-arch is a voussoir decorated with chevron ornament dating from around 1130. Disturbed rubble at the east end of the north wall marks the former presence of a stair to the rood-loft.

The south wall of the nave contains two windows. The eastern, dating from around 1340, has two trefoiled ogee lights with quatrefoiled tracery in a 2-centred head and moulded label; the rear-arch is wave-moulded and the sill is dropped in the manner of the opposite window, retaining crown glass. The western window is similar in date and detail to those in the north wall. An internal recess of uncertain origin lies east of these windows, with splayed jambs and a chamfered segmental rear-arch. The late 14th-century south doorway west of the windows features jambs and a 2-centred arch wave-moulded in two orders, with a moulded label. The west wall contains a window largely of 19th-century date, though the internal jambs are 15th-century and plain, with a hollow-chamfered 2-centred rear-arch. Two scratch dials appear on the south-west quoins, one faint. An inspection panel in the floor of the north-east corner of the nave gives access to rubble foundations excavated by the Brain Valley Archaeological Society in 1978, revealing that the nave originally terminated in a narrow chancel-arch, with an apsidal chancel on the site of the western part of the present chancel.

The nave roof spans four bays; the westernmost bay is wholly occupied by the bell-turret. The roof features four tiebeams on arch-braced wall-pieces, arched to their collars, with side purlins and crown pieces with collar purlins engaging high collars. The couples are framed into seven cants. Below the collars, timber arches tie to the principal-rafters by three short timbers, with pierced tracery panels between them and the main timbers. The wallplates are moulded to a bowtell in great casement, as are the tiebeams, purlins, and arched braces, all characteristic of early 14th-century work. The most westerly common couple is exposed in the west gable.

The bell-turret of around 1400 is mounted on four posts forming a portal frame, with arched braces of steep 4-centred arcature; the west braces are hollow-chamfered, while the other braces and posts are plain-chamfered. The braces engage with attached shafts on the posts, and the spandrels contain vertical and horizontal struts. Similar braces appear in the north and south sides. Above the tiebeams, two further stages are visible, each with curved saltire bracing on each side, and within them a similar, later structure supporting the square bell-turret and short octagonal spire.

The north vestry has a door with a 4-centred head, and in each side a two-light window of plastered brick in a 2-centred head. A quatrefoil recess appears in the north wall, and the roof is flat.

The piscina in the south wall of the chancel is 16th-century, with chamfered jambs and a 4-centred head, and retains an earlier octofoil drain asymmetrically placed, probably 14th-century. The chancel contains a brass to Dorcas (Bigg), wife of Thomas Musgrave of Norton, Yorkshire, dated 1610, showing a seated figure of a lady with her left hand pointing to an infant figure, accompanied by two inscription plates. A floor-slab commemorates William Smith and Dorcas, his wife, from the mid-17th century, though the inscription is worn. On the south wall of the chancel is a monument to Anne (Grene), wife of Thomas Newman and subsequently Henry Smith of Cressing Temple, dated 1607. The monument is of alabaster and marble, featuring kneeling figures of a man in plate-armour and a lady with four shields of arms, and a panelled base with small figures of a daughter and a swaddled infant. Fragments of 14th-century glass have been reset in the tracery of the north windows of the nave. Above the north doorway are the arms of Queen Anne before the Union, painted on canvas in a carved frame. The church contains one bell, cast by Thomas Gardiner in 1737.