Church Of All Saints

ULTING

535/3/40 CHURCH LANE 30-DEC-59 CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS

II* Parish church. C13 nave and chancel, chancel with earlier core, restored and extended 1873 by Frederick Chancellor. Undivided C13 nave and chancel, C19 north porch and south vestry. Flint, puddingstone, septaria and brick. Red plain tiled roof, pierced ridge tiles. Weatherboarded and shingled spire. Chancel. C19 east window of three cusped lights with reticulated tracery above, 2 centre arched head, moulded label, rear splays may be C15. Two stage buttresses to northeast and southeast angles. South wall, to right and left of gabled south vestry are cusped two-light windows with tracery, two- centre arched heads and moulded labels, altered 1873. Restored lancet immediately to west of vestry. Vestry, 1873, with small pointed arch window and angle buttresses, reduced stack of former stove chimney. Small C13 lancet window to west of south doorway, this C13 restored C19, with moulded shafts and imposts and two-centre arched head. West wall, two C19 stone dressed lancet windows with coloured brick and tile relieving arches above. C19 circular gable window with brick, flint and stone dressings. Stone trefoil panel to apex. North wall with three C13 lancet windows and a largely C19 window of two cusped lights with tracery in a two-centred head, with C14 rear splay. C19 gabled north porch with timber supports on flint and rubble plinth, pierced bargeboards to gable, scissor braced roof. Two-centre arched doorway, jambs each with two moulded shafts and moulded imposts.

Interior. Chancel roof barrel vaulted, moulded wall plates. No chancel arch. Nave roof of seven cants, moulded and crenellated wall plates. Two bays. Rood and west tie beam moulded with run out stops, the west tie supports the belfry, central arched braces to collar, moulded wall posts on triangular corbels. C14 piscina in north wall of nave, under inserted C14 window, part of cill of which cut away, possibly as sedilia. C19 carved and moulded altar rails. C19 carved choir stalls, carved pews with poppy heads. C19 octagonal stone pulpit, moulded base, pierced trefoiled two-light panels, centre and angle columns. C19 organ with painted pipes. Octagonal font, probably early C13 Purbeck marble bowl, with two-centre arched sunk panels, chamfered angles and rim, supported on central and angle columns, on later plain octagonal base. Coloured floor tiles. Base of former late C19 chancel stove formerly described as tomb slab. Before 1873, vestry attached to south side of nave.

Earliest records of church on the site in 1299 when Lord of the Manor of Ulting gave the church to Beeleigh Abbey, but physical evidence suggests at least mid C12 origins. Unusual position of nave piscine and sedilia suggests use of nave as parochial church, the chancel for the monks. Extant plans of church before, and with proposed works by Chancellor.

RCHM Essex. Central and South West, 1921, p236