Church Of All Saints

TL 8467-8567 FORNHAM ALL SAINTS THE GREEN (WEST SIDE)

3/10 Church of All Saints 14.7.55

GV I

Parish church. C12, C13, C14 and C15, restored 1863/4. Nave, chancel, west tower, south porch, north and south aisles and north transept, in rubble flint with freestone dressings. C20 plaintiled roofs to nave and chancel. Small, unbuttressed tower without a west door: 3 stages with fine grotesque gargoyles below the parapet. The parapet and pinnacles were added in 1864. Remains of coursed rubble flint in the north wall of the nave, and one Y-tracery window at the west end of the south wall. C12 south doorway with one order of shafts, volute capitals, each different, and a roll-moulded arch. C15 south porch, faced in black knapped flint, with a shallow gabled parapet faced with stone quatrefoils; a central niche and crocketted pinnacles at the angles. A 2-bay open timber roof with ogee-mouldings to joists and cross beams and carved bosses at the intersections: the central boss, a bearded human face with protruding tongue, is particularly fine. Chancel with windows in Decorated style: flowing tracery to both windows on north side, with evidence in the walling for earlier window openings; 3-light east window with reticulated tracery. The north transept has a shallow-pitched lead roof and was extensively restored in 1864. Perpendicular north aisle with 2-light windows. Late C15 south aisle, the same height as the nave, which was added to the south wall of the porch and extends beyond the east end of the nave: 3 2-light Perpendicular windows on the south side, and a renewed 3-light east window; a fine crenellated parapet with flushwork panels bearing various initials and shields and the inscriptions 'IHS HAVE MERCY'. A row of gargoyles below the parapet. Nave interior with a fine set of 8 pairs of C15 benches with poppyheads, one pair also with animals carved on the armrests. 3 benches in the same style in the north aisle. Nave with a plain scissor- braced rafter roof; north aisle roof with ogee-moulded main timbers and joists, arched bracing to the principals, carved bosses; south aisle roof C19 restored. A C15 doorway with panelled jambs and carved spandrels leads from the east end of the north aisle into the north transept, now the vestry. The south aisle has a simple piscina and the remains of niches in the south-east and north-east angles, the former with a decorated canopy. Victorianised chancel, with a boarded and decorated roof.

Listing NGR: TL8375267623