Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Sutton

A church dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, damaged by fire in 1616. The former north-eastern tower fell in 1642. The building was restored between 1854 and 1860 by Morgan and Phippson, with further restoration in 1868 by Edward Low. A porch was added in 1877.

The church is constructed of rubble flint, rendered flint rubble and knapped flint with ashlar dressings and a roof of plain tiles. The plan comprises a nave, chancel and south-western porch.

The south face of the nave was refaced around 1854–60. A gabled porch stands to the left of centre, built in knapped flint with diagonal buttresses to the corners, featuring offsets and gablets. The central archway has keeled colonettes and a hoodmould. The gable has an ashlar coping and is decorated with a band containing square flower ornament. Above this is a blank triple niche. To the right is a two-light Curvilinear window with ogee-headed lights and a dagger to the apex, partially reworked in the 19th century but retaining material from an earlier window. Two further 19th-century windows to the right copy this pattern. A buttress with two offsets stands at the far right.

The north face is rendered. Four buttresses, each with two offsets, show some 18th or early 19th-century rebuilding in brick. A two-light Y-tracery window of around 1310 stands to the left of centre with a double-chamfered surround. A doorway to the right of centre is now mostly obscured by a later boiler house, with only the hoodmould visible through the render. A quatrefoil light serves the rood stair at the far left.

The west face features a central window of three lights with interlacing tracery, the wall being built with randomly set blocks of freestone.

The chancel's south face has a priest's doorway slightly to the left of centre. An Early-Perpendicular window stands to the left and a Y-tracery two-light window to the right, both of 19th-century date but possibly copying the forms of earlier models. The north face is rendered, revealing considerable quantities of 17th or 18th-century rebuilding in brick. A Y-tracery window to the right has a hollow chamfered surround. The east face has diagonal buttresses with two offsets dying back into the corners. A central 19th-century three-light Curvilinear window with ogee heads and mouchettes and daggers to the apex forms a five-petalled flower.

The interior of the nave features a panelled plaster ceiling with moulded pine ribs and square floral bosses at the intersections. The ceiling appears to incorporate material from the earlier church, including arched braces. A rood loft staircase has two openings; the lower opening features a four-centred arch with an ashlar surround.

The font is early 15th-century ashlar work, octagonal and raised on one step. An octagonal shaft is surrounded by eight mutilated figures in clerical habits, which Cautley associates with the serving of mass. The corbel course carries heads of a cardinal, bishop, monk and neophyte and four orders of nuns set between which are a chalice, patten, censer, ship, holy-water vat and sprinkler. The slightly battered bowl has buttresses to the angles and sunken panels containing representations of the four evangelists and four other figures which Cautley conjecturally ascribes to the Virgin, Christ, God and an angel. Pevsner described the font as "quite an exceptional piece", carved with verve and skill.

The chancel ceiling comprises four bays of ashlar posts, common rafters, collars and arched braces, much of the timber appearing to be re-used. 19th-century stalls feature front panels of 16th-century linenfold panelling.