Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of medieval origin with later additions, located at Mattishall. The building is constructed of flint with ashlar and some brick dressings, and is roofed in lead.

The church comprises a west tower, an aisled nave with north and south porches, a chancel, and a south chapel to the chancel.

The west tower dates to the late 14th century. It features angle buttresses with gabled copings that become diagonal buttresses at bell stage. A moulded west doorway is set beneath a large three-light window with an embattled transom. Narrow cross loops appear at the intermediate stage, and an east window sits just above the nave roof ridge. The bell openings are two-light with super mullions flanking the soufflets. A crenellated parapet displays blind tracery with crocketted corner pinnacles. A short leaded spire topped with a cupola and weather vane dated 1640 crowns the tower.

The aisles feature a pair of two-light Decorated west windows. The south wall displays three restored three-light Perpendicular windows, while the north wall has three Perpendicular three-light windows, two set beneath four-centred arches and one beneath a three-centred arch. The north aisle east window is in Decorated style with extravagant mouchettes. Nine two-light clerestorey windows, including one in the east gable, have restored tracery.

The north porch has a blocked entrance with two-light traceried side windows. Diagonal buttresses with flushwork support the structure, with three statue niches above the entrance featuring double and triple ogee arches. Carved angels ornament the entrance spandrels, and a crenellated parapet with flushwork tops the porch.

The south porch has been heavily restored. It features polygonal angle buttresses with crocketted cupolas, renewed flushwork, and a niche above the entrance.

The chancel south chapel is built of galletted flint and has three three-light Perpendicular windows and a priest's door. The chancel itself has three three-light Perpendicular windows with exceptionally narrow tracery bars and embattled transoms to the central lights. A restored five-light Perpendicular east window completes the chancel.

The interior has four-bay arcades with a narrower westernmost bay. Perpendicular piers, with opposing half shafts to east and west applied to a narrow section of projecting masonry, carry uninterrupted the outer orders of the arcades. The arcades have shallow arch mouldings, tall facetted bases, and polygonal bell capitals. A massive moulded tower arch with a pair of semicircular responds stands at the crossing, while the chancel arch matches the style of the arcade piers.

The south aisle roof is mostly Victorian but retains some mutilated medieval wall-post carvings and four carved stone wall-post corbels. The nave roof is late-medieval hammer-beam construction. The hammers are finely carved with representations of angels, saints, and possibly donors, though all the heads and some figures have been renewed. The hammers support arched braces rather than struts, with additional arched braces across the ridge. The roof includes a single set of moulded butt-purlins and a moulded ridge piece. Common rafters are boarded over in the three easternmost bays, which retain two surviving painted scenes. Four arch-braced ties, dated in paintwork to 1617, have been inserted, featuring ogee moulded chamfers and painted geometric patterns.

The north aisle roof is contemporary with the nave roof and displays similar, though mutilated, carvings.

The chancel south chapel features a three-centred moulded arch to the west and an exceedingly wide three-centred arch to the north, with rere-arches and shafts on the south wall. A simple piscina is set in the south chapel, while the chancel has a cusped piscina. Surviving dado panels to the chancel screen display very elaborate blind tracery with a pair of painted saints to each panel. The screen to the south chapel has been partially renewed.

A pulpit of 18th or 19th-century date, polygonal and in Jacobean style, features a tester decorated with marquetry.