Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Little Bradley

This is an outstanding example of a very complete mid 11th-century church with some early 12th-century additions but few subsequent changes.

The church dates mainly to the mid 11th century, with origins in the nave, tower, and western part of the chancel. The eastern part of the chancel is not much later, probably dating to the late 11th or early 12th century. The top of the tower was added or rebuilt in the mid 15th century (probably around 1455), and new windows were also added at that time. The former rood screen and rood stair may be contemporary. There appears to have been additional work in the 16th century, notably the tower door and some windows. The church was restored in the 1870s.

The building is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings and has a red tiled roof. There is a timber south porch. The plan consists of an aisleless nave with south porch, a round west tower with octagonal top, and a chancel.

The west tower is of two stages. The lower stage is round and dates to the mid to late 11th century. It is probably Anglo-Saxon in origin, but it may have been built soon after the Conquest as it has a slight herringbone pattern in some of the masonry. The tower plinth is slightly different to that of the nave, suggesting that it was an addition. There are small, round-headed windows in the north, west and south faces, heavily renewed. There is no west door. The upper stage, above the nave roofline, is polygonal and was added in the mid 15th century. It has a stepped, embattled parapet and 2-light Perpendicular windows in the cardinal faces.

The short nave is also mid 11th century, and more definitely Anglo-Saxon as it has long-and-short quoins, much renewed, at the corners. There is a blocked north door with long-and-short quoins, with a two-light, square-headed Perpendicular window in the upper part. There is another, larger Perpendicular window further east in the nave north wall. There are two different Perpendicular windows on the south side east of the porch, one of 3 lights with a depressed head, possibly 16th century, the other of two-lights with a hood mould and very similar to that on the north.

The chancel is long and has shallow projecting sections on either side in the western half. These do not reach the eaves and die back into the main wall. They have quoins at their eastern corners, and probably represent the remains of the original low, short, square chancel. Each has a single light window in the middle, that on the north with a pointed, foiled head, that on the south is plain and square. There is also a blocked low-side window on the south and the remains of a rood stair are visible in the angle between nave and chancel on the south. The chancel appears to have been raised and lengthened shortly after the church was built. There are two blocked, monolithic-headed windows of the late 11th or very early 12th century in the east wall, probably the remains of a triplet of windows. There are also two similar monolithic headed windows in the eastern part of the north chancel wall, the more western is blocked. The east window is Perpendicular of 3 lights, and the south-east chancel window is probably 16th century and has two lights under a segmental head with a hood mould and head stops.

The 19th-century south porch is timber on flint and ashlar dwarf walls. The timber sides have Flamboyant tracery and pierced bargeboards, and may incorporate some medieval timber. It covers an 11th-century doorway, tall with a round head; it has a slight continuous chamfer and no capitals.

Inside, the interior is painted and plastered. The inner face of the south door has the quoins revealed, including an area of long and short work. The tower arch is round and stands on chamfered imposts. It is blocked by a door with a Tudor arched frame with carved spandrels. The tympanum above the lintel is plain. The tower windows have deep, squared splays.

The chancel arch is round-headed and has chamfered imposts with a small, rounded moulding. It may be an alteration of the Norman period when the chancel was extended. There are deep notches in the imposts for a former screen. The surviving early chancel window has a deep splay with round head.

The roofs are 19th century. The nave roof has tie beams and arched braces, collars and king posts over. It is boarded behind the rafters. The chancel roof has an embattled wall plate and embattled tie beam at the entrance to the sanctuary. The sanctuary roof is boarded over.

The principal fixtures include a small piscina in a recess above a dropped sill sedilia, a 15th-century octagonal font, and a probably 19th or 20th-century panelled timber drum pulpit on a short stone stem with a 18th-century hexagonal tester. There are 19th-century choir stalls with shouldered ends and 19th-century nave benches with square-headed ends and blind traceried panels with miniature buttresses.

Some fragments of medieval glass including canopies and the letter A, probably largely 15th century, have been reassembled into a cross in the chancel south window. A three-light nave south window has 19th-century glass of St Andrew, St Stephen and St Paul as a memorial to John Daye, the 16th-century printer, installed by the Company of Stationers. Another good late 19th or early 20th-century two-light window of the Good Shepherd is in the nave.

The church contains excellent monuments including a brass to John Daye (died 1584), a well-known Elizabethan printer of religious works including the Book of Common Prayer and Foxe's Book of the Martyrs, with a punning inscription, very complete. There are several other brasses, including one of 1605 to John and Jane le Hunte, and a mid 16th-century carved wall monument to Richard le Hunte (died 1540).

Great and Little Bradley are listed together simply as Bradley in Domesday Book of 1086. There was a church in Bradley in 1086, and while it is usually assumed to have been that at Great Bradley, it could have been the one at Little Bradley as Little Bradley church is earlier than Great Bradley church. A will of 1455 or 1456 may give a date for the building or rebuilding of the top of the tower.