Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Gazeley, The Street

A substantial medieval church, primarily of the early 14th century with significant late 15th-century alterations. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a south porch and a west tower. It is constructed of flint rubble with areas of rendering to the porch and chancel, freestone dressings, parapet gables and crenellated parapets. The roofs are plain-tiled to the chancel and porch, slated to the nave and vestry, and flat to the tower and aisles.

The chancel contains an unusual east window of three lights below a cusped trefoil, with blank arched panels in the reveals and an inner arch. Two-light windows to the north and south have the western pair featuring a transome and lowered sills. A fine piscina is integral with a double window-seat sedilia, with an armrest between the seats fashioned as a crude lion couchant. The north wall displays a projecting aumbry with crocketed canopy.

The nave has moulded arched doorways to north and south, the priest's door being similar. Four-bay nave arcades feature quatrefoil piers, with the chancel arch and tower arch being broad and of similar type. The west tower dates to the 14th century, though its upper level was partly rebuilt in 1884 with a three-light west window and two-light belfry openings. The east face retains weatherings for two previous nave roofs, and the sanctus bell opening is now positioned above the nave roof. The west doorway is also 14th-century in date.

The late 15th-century work included raising or rebuilding the aisle walls to accommodate large three-light windows and raising the nave walls for a new clerestory. Complete reroofing was undertaken: the chancel roof rises in seven cants with boarding and moulded ribs, incorporating a large selection of carved angels, human faces, animals and foliage. The nave roof comprises four bays with arch-braced tie-beams, arch-braced principals (both having traceried spandrels) and carved pendant bosses. The aisle roofs have principals mounted on carved corbels of clunch.

The 15th-century porch features a pilastered doorway, two-light side windows, stone seats and a gargoyle. Above the doorway is a sundial. The vestry was added in the 15th century; the doorway from the chancel retains its original plank door.

An octagonal 14th-century font of limestone displays simple tracery in panels on the bowl and stem. The screen is primarily late 16th-century with tracery at the heads, complete up to the rood-beam, though much restored and incorporating earlier work at low level. An octagonal pulpit, dating to around 1500, has sunk traceried panels between buttresses; it was heavily restored in the 19th century. Good 15th-century pews include two sets of four benches at the rear of the nave, each having buttresses, traceried ends and backs. Two long stall-fronts each contain eight fine traceried panels. Two further poppy-head benches have traceried backs, one bearing the damaged lettering "SALAMON SAYET".

In the south aisle stands a fine mid-16th-century Purbeck marble altar tomb with buttresses, cresting, traceried front and indents for brasses now lost. The chancel contains a wall monument to Edmund Heigham and his wife, who died in 1604 and 1599 respectively. Also in the chancel are eleven floor slabs, mostly of marble—one possibly of the 15th century having had extensive brasses, the others mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries. The nave and aisles contain eleven further floor slabs, predominantly of the 16th to 18th centuries. A consecration cross appears on the north chancel wall. Good 15th and 16th-century figures and canopy-work in stained glass remain in the aisle and clerestory windows.