Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

A parish church at Tilney All Saints with a late 12th-century nave and chancel, a late 13th and 14th-century west tower, and a spire dating to 1428. The nave and chancel aisles were remodelled in the 15th century, and battlements were added between 1523 and 1525. The building is constructed in Barnack stone, partly rendered.

The tower is of four stages, with angle buttresses developing out of polygonal corner turrets which terminate above a crenellated parapet in crocketted pinnacles. The west door has four orders with undercut mouldings beneath an ogeed hood. The west window consists of three pointed lancets, each separated by pilaster strips. Similar fenestration appears to the north and south, but with a blind central light. The ringing chamber has 2-light ogeed reticulated windows, and the belfry has 2-light windows of mouchette form. String courses divide the storeys. An octagonal spire rises above, with gabled lucarnes at its base on alternate facets.

The nave and chancel are continuous. The south aisle contains one 5-light square-headed window and one 3-light arched Perpendicular window west of the porch. East of the porch are six straight-headed windows of 3 or 4 cusped lights running to the chancel east end. Two sloping brick 18th-century buttresses stand at intervals. The nave and chancel aisles are parapeted. The south clerestory windows, running west to east, comprise an encircled quatrefoil, two 2-light square-headed windows, three 3-light depressed arched 15th-century windows, and in the chancel three 3-light square-headed windows. A gabled south porch with stepped side buttresses has an arched outer door and one blocked triangular-headed side window north and south. A late 13th-century inner doorway features a column supporting naturalistic foliage carving. The east end of the aisles lacks windows. Two flat clasping buttresses of 12th-century date frame a 5-light transomed 15th-century east window. Diagonal buttresses appear at the aisles, and flat stepped north buttresses also feature. Two eastern north aisle windows have 3 lights and cusped early Perpendicular tracery, separated by a large sloping 18th-century brick buttress. The remainder of the aisle has 3-light arched panel tracery windows. An early 14th-century north door stands below a plain 2-light square-headed window. The clerestory comprises 2-light square-headed windows.

The interior reveals a 13th-century tower connected to the nave by one 14th-century bay with a double-chamfered arch. The tower arch has quatrefoil piers with moulded circular bases and capitals supporting an arch of two hollow chamfers separated by a roll. The west door arch is stilted. Two roll-moulded stairway arches are set in the thickness of the western buttresses. The west window has shafted lights on the interior with a wall passage. The ringing chamber floor survives. A late 12th-century arcade of seven bays, extending two bays into the chancel, features drum piers on water-holding bases with waterleaf, scalloped, or crocket capitals supporting rebated semi-circular arches.

A remarkable late 15th-century hammerbeam roof has two registers of hammers. Alternate trusses drop on wall posts to corbels in the form of angels bearing scrolls. These angels stand immediately below statues of prophets in canopied niches. Curved arched braces rise to the wall plate. Secondary trusses have hammer beams carved as angels with open books, whilst main trusses have angels bearing tablets. Upper false hammer beams display a flight of winged angels bearing books and tablets. One tier of moulded butt purlins and moulded collars with struts to the ridge piece complete the roof. A 19th-century chancel hammerbeam roof with angels bearing shields retains moulded purlins, principals, and collars that are 15th-century survivals. Stepped sedilia in the chancel south wall feature cusped ogee heads to each bay below a cornice, which continues eastward over a similar piscina. Two blocked chancel windows appear on each side.

A chancel screen dated 1618 has two bays right and left of the opening. The panelled dado has a top frieze of scroll decoration and pierced foliate heads to the lights. The top rail is surmounted by paired balusters alternating with panelled obelisks. Below these runs a frieze of fretwork and dragons. Four-bay late 15th-century parclose screens flank the chancel aisles, featuring Perpendicular tracery and crenellated top rails. Handsome 17th-century altar rails comprise arched bays divided by muntins against which turned balusters are set. The arches are filled with circular and scrolled strapwork pierced panels. A 17th-century octagonal font has a traceried stem and bowl decorated with alternating biblical verses and geometric patterns. Painted Royal Arms of Queen Anne date from 1711 and hang at the west end of the south aisle within an original frame featuring openwork obelisks.