Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, built in flint with stone dressings and plain tile roofing. It stands attached to the ruins of a former Augustinian Priory. The church comprises a 14th-century west tower, nave, chancel, south porch, and a north aisle that was rebuilt in 1866 on the foundations of an earlier 11th-century nave. Remains of an 11th-century central tower survive to the east of the present north aisle and north of the present chancel. A north vestry dating from 1866 also forms part of the building.

The three-stage west tower displays coursed flint to its first stage, with flushwork extending to the embattled parapet and to diagonal buttresses. A relieving arch in alternating brick and knapped flint sits above the blocked west doorway. The west window has similar brick and flint voussoirs. The bell openings consist of 2-light designs with panel tracery; the west and south faces carry clock faces and small square sound holes decorated with Decorated tracery. A square stair turret occupies the north side of the tower. Diagonal buttresses flank the west nave, with the northern buttress partly encased by the tower.

The south nave is built of uncoursed galleted broken flint and features two tall 2-light Decorated windows. A gable parapet and cross crown the south nave end. The two-storeyed south porch has diagonal buttresses and displays knapped flint on its ground floor and brick and flint chequerwork on its first floor. The returns have been partly rebuilt in irregular whole and broken flint with erratics. A moulded stone cornice runs around the structure. The entrance is marked by a hollow chamfered arch with an ogee niche above it. The first-floor window is tall and narrow, comprising two trefoil-headed lights with transoms beneath a square head.

Inside the porch, the first floor has been removed, revealing two niches on the east wall of the original first floor. The south doorway features plain chamfered jambs and a moulded arch with stone corbels supporting extended stop ledges at the ends of the hood mould. A ledged and battened door dated 1890 (marked in nail heads) retains wrought iron decorative strap hinges.

The chancel has a lean-to pantile roof against the 11th-century tower to its north. Its windowless east wall is built of coursed flint and erratics, while the south wall, of broken flint with an oversailing brick cornice, contains two openings. The left opening is a 2-light window with very thick bar tracery beneath a segmental head; the right opening consists of three cusp-headed lights with mouchettes.

The north aisle of 1866 is constructed of large uncoursed flints and contains a Y-tracery window to the east and a 3-light intersecting tracery window to the west. A low lean-to vestry of 1866, positioned between the north aisle and the 11th-century tower, is also built of large uncoursed flints with a slate roof and a tall chimney shaft of pebble flint to its north east.

The interior features a two-bay arcade to the north with round piers and double chamfered arches. The exposed impost of a third arcade pier survives in the north chancel wall. A late 19th-century arch-braced hammer beam roof with wall posts and Decorated fretwork spandrels spans the nave; the chancel has an arch-braced roof of similar character. The chancel arch is double hollow chamfered and rises from stone shield corbels with plain jambs. An ogee-headed piscina with a polygonal drainage shaft occupies the chancel, and sedilia are incorporated into the dropped rear arch of the south window. A blocked 4-centred arch to the north opens towards the 11th-century tower, with a small blocked doorway nearby.

Furnishings include wrought iron ogee-headed communion rails, a pulpit incorporating early 17th-century panels from a three-decker pulpit, and four 15th-century poppy heads (two with figures to the shoulders) integrated into 19th-century bench ends. An ogee-headed piscina with drainage occurs in the south nave, and a small niche is set inside the south doorway.