Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church dating from the mid-14th and 15th centuries, constructed of flint with ashlar quoins and plain tiled roofs. The building comprises a west tower, nave, and chancel.

The three-stage tower features diagonal buttresses to the west and flat buttresses to the east, all finished with flushwork. String courses divide the stages. The west window is a three-light design with mouchette tracery, though its lower portion was blocked in the 1630s. Circular ringing chamber lights with quatrefoils are present, along with two-light louvred belfry windows containing a single reticulation unit. The tower is topped by a crenellated parapet.

A 15th-century gabled south porch has an arch with roll and wave moulding with fleurons below a brick relieving arch and a statutory niche. The parapet is coped. Two-light side windows sit under square brick hoods. The porch roof is supported on arched braces with moulded purlins and ridge piece. The inner south door features two orders of sunk quadrants and a hood on head stops.

The nave has two flat buttresses. A 14th-century two-light ogeed window with reticulation within a larger unit is present, followed to the east by a three-light four-centred 15th-century panel window. A raised brick coping divides the nave from the chancel.

The chancel has flat and diagonal eastern buttresses. Three two-light cusped Y windows face south, with two to the north. A priest's door on the south side has a hood that interrupts the string course, which continues around the chancel and is further punctuated by buttresses. A fine three-light east window of intersecting type displays cusped mouchettes and petals. It has hollow moulded jambs and a hood mould on labels. A blocked circular roof light with quatrefoil is set in the heightened parapet.

Two three-light 15th-century panel windows face north on the nave, and a 14th-century ogeed north door with two orders of wave mouldings is present. A 20th-century brick buttress was added at the west.

The interior is remarkable for the complete survival of furnishings dating from 1630, following a fire in 1633. A gallery screen under the tower has two dated doors (1637) with two tiers of turned balusters. The gallery ceiling features timber with heavily moulded joists framing a square central bay containing a circular quartered hatch with a central boss. A closed string ladder staircase has a square newel with a domed finial, a moulded central baluster, a plain handrail, and a moulded string.

Ten sets of bench pews feature fleur-de-lys bench ends with some incised decoration. Four box pews to the east retain their H hinges. A panelled triple decker pulpit stands under a tester, with the pulpit featuring scrolled brackets supporting a combined cornice and reading desk. The base of a screen survives. A communion rail has turned balusters beneath a moulded top rail with ball finials, with a central gate featuring two tiers of similar balusters.

The nave roof also dates from the 1630s and features tie beams with roll mouldings and tongue stops below the wall plate; moulded principals not aligned to the ties sit on wall posts with braces; three tiers of moulded butt purlins and roll moulded arched collars are present. A square poor box on a column is dated 1638.

A late 14th-century octagonal font has a bowl decorated with tracery motifs in gables. The chancel arch has continuous lobes to the responds and a wave moulded arch. The chancel roof features principals on wall posts with arched braces, two tiers of butt purlins, and collars. A cinquefoil piscina is present. A timber Royal Arms of Charles I hangs over the south door, and remains of wall painting depicting Saint Christopher survive on the north nave wall.