Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Little Bealings has a church that combines work from the 14th century, 16th century, and 1851. It is built of rubble flint with ashlar and brick dressings, and English bond brick, with a plain tiled roof. The building comprises a south-western porch-tower, nave, chancel, and northern aisle.

The tower has a slightly projecting plinth that dies back via a chamfered ashlar offset, with ashlar quoins at the corners. The south face features a porch doorway at ground floor level with a wave-moulded ashlar surround and brick voussoirs above. A lancet window at first floor level has chamfered ashlar sides and a 20th-century cement head, above which are tiles or Roman bricks. The belfry window above this also has chamfered ashlar sides and a concrete chamfered arch. Similar belfry openings appear on the northern and east faces, but the west face retains some remnants of Decorated tracery to the arch.

The nave's south face shows the tower porch at left, followed by a section of rubble flint walling with, slightly projecting to its right, a portion of red 16th-century English bond brickwork that dies back via an offset. Above this is a two-light window with four-centred heads and chamfered surround, with a hoodmould of shaped bricks. The west face has rendered diagonal buttresses that die into the angles via offsets, and a central three-light window with 19th-century interlacing tracery, which may copy the original form, with a chamfered surround.

The northern aisle of 1851 is built of rubble flint walling with a yellow brick plinth, quoins, and eaves band. The northern face has two lancet windows with yellow brick surrounds, while the east and west windows are each three-lights with intersecting tracery.

The chancel's south wall contains, at left, a two-light window with Y-tracery and a double-chamfered surround with hood mould, and at right a two-light window with cusped lights and a trefoil to the apex, also with double-chamfered surround and hood mould. Between these is a priest's door with chamfered surround, broach stopped above the sill, and with hood mould. The eastern wall is rendered with diagonal buttresses that die back into the angles via two offsets. The central three-light window has interlacing tracery, double-chamfered surround, and hood mould.

Interior

The doorway to the church within the porch has a chamfered surround with hood mould. The roof is boarded in by a wagon roof ceiling. The northern and southern chancel walls have a projecting wooden cornice; that to the north has two rows of brattishing, while that to the south has only one. A simpler cornice appears on the southern wall of the nave, and a 19th-century pinewood cornice on the northern nave wall imitates that in the chancel.

An arcade of three arches, with painted octagonal brick piers, moulded capitals, and chamfered arches, runs along the southern aisle. The pulpit was largely rebuilt around 1925 but incorporates several Jacobean panels.

The font is of 15th-century date, octagonal, with a plinth bearing four lions, heavily mutilated buttresses, and square flowers below the bowl. The bowl is decorated with interlaced cherubs' wings, their heads now hacked off with one exception. Sunken panels appear on the sides of the bowl; six are now bare, whilst the others contain a lion with a scroll and an angel bearing a shield, both well carved.