Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a church built between 1953 and 1955 by J Fletcher Watson. It is constructed from flint with brick pilasters, quoins, and a frieze, featuring artificial stone dressings. The upper stages of the tower are of bleached oak, the spire is shingled, and the roofs are of pantiles, with a low pitch. The design follows a Georgian plan, comprising an aisleless rectangular nave, a semi-circular sanctuary, and a western tower. There is an organ in a west gallery and a font below. The church is in a Georgian style, featuring round-headed windows to the nave and a segmental fanlight above a square-headed entrance set in a Tuscan pedimented portico. West of the main entrance, the gallery is expressed by windows at two levels, square below and oval above; brick pilasters separate the bays, with flint panels inset between them. The windows have small panes and glazing bars. The tower has a semi-circular headed, louvred bell stage, topped by a square, pilastered stage in unpainted, bleached oak. Above this is an octagonal stage, also in unpainted oak, with semi-circular headed open lights, surmounted by a shingled spire with a weathercock.

The interior features a segmental barrel vaulted ceiling decorated with star-shaped vents, some of which carry decorative bronze candelabra. The sanctuary has a semi-circular vault, flanked by Tuscan columns and pilasters. Furnishings include limed oak pews and a three-decker pulpit with a sounding board. An altar rail of c1900 appearance is traceried in Gothic style. The western gallery has turned balusters supported by Tuscan columns, painted white. The circular stone font flares towards the top and has lead lapped over the lip in a wavy pattern; a timber font-cover features an orb and cross. The church is described as an attractive neo-Georgian building, well-crafted in local materials, and cited as an example of a basilican or Romanesque plan chosen in preference to a late medieval layout for theological and liturgical reasons. J Fletcher Watson was an important local architect who continued the tradition of Georgian vernacular.