Church Of All Saints

TG 02 SW 496/1/10005

BAWDESWELL THE STREET Church of All Saints

II

Church. 1953-55. By J Fletcher Watson. Flint with brick pilasters, quoins and frieze. Artificial stone dressings. Bleached oak to upper stages of tower, and shingle spire. Pantiles to main roofs of church which are low pitched. Georgian type plan; aisleless rectangular nave with semi-circular sanctuary and western tower; organ in west gallery and font below. Georgian style, with round-headed windows to nave, segmental fanlight above square-headed entrance set in Tuscan pedimented portico. To west of main entrance the gallery is expressed by windows at two levels, square below and oval above. Brick pilasters separate the bays, and panels of flint are inset between. Small panes, glazing bars. Tower with semi-circular headed louvred bell stage. Above is a square, pilastered stage in unpainted, bleached oak and above this an octagonal stage also in unpainted oak with semi-circular headed open lights, topped by a shingle spire with a weathercock. Interior with segmental barrel vaulted ceiling decorated with star-shaped vents, some carrying decorative bronze candelabra. Semi-circular vault above sanctuary, which is flanked by Tuscan columns and pilasters. Limed oak pews and three-decker pulpit with sounding board. Gothic traceried altar rail of c1900 appearance. Western gallery with turned balusters supported by Tuscan columns, painted in white. Circular stone font slightly flared towards the top and with lead lapped over the lip in a wavy pattern; timber font-cover with orb and cross. An attractive neo-Georgian church, well-crafted in local materials. Cited in P. Hammond's Liturgy and Architecture' (pp 116-117) as an example of abasilican or Romanesque type of plan, deliberately adopted in preference to a late medieval layout on theological and liturgical grounds'. J Fletcher Watson was an important local architect who continued the tradition of Georgian vernacular in a series of buildings, of which this is the finest.

Listing NGR: TG0466820915