Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Barnardiston

This is a small medieval parish church that stands on high ground, with a substantial tower that is visible from some distance away. The chancel dates to the 13th century, though the nave is probably of earlier origin. The church underwent substantial rebuilding in the 14th century, and was further remodelled and refurnished in the 15th century when the tower, rood screen and rood stair turret were added. The pulpit and altar rails date to the 17th century. The church was restored in the 19th century with further work in the early 20th century.

The building is constructed mainly of flint rubble with stone dressings. The north side of the nave is rendered, as is part of the east nave gable and a small area of the chancel. The nave and west tower have lead roofs, whilst the chancel and porch have tiled roofs. The interior is plastered and painted.

The church comprises a chancel, aisleless nave with a northeast rood stair, a north porch, and a west tower. The chancel has diagonal northeast and southeast buttresses and an additional buttress in the middle of the south wall. It has two cusped 2-light windows with square heads in the south wall and a single similar window in the north wall. The chancel north door is double chamfered with a pointed head and hoodmould. The east window is a 19th-century Perpendicular-style window of 3 lights with a pointed head.

The nave has a parapet of coped ashlar and a lead mansard roof. The scar of an earlier pitched roof is visible against the east wall of the tower. The south nave wall has tall stepped buttresses and two 2-light 19th-century windows with Perpendicular-style tracery. There is a similar window on the north side. A large northeast rood stair turret, square on plan, has an embattled parapet.

The imposing 15th-century north porch has diagonal buttresses and a tall outer doorway with engaged half shafts. The porch has a 15th-century east window. The inner north doorway is 14th-century and features many tiny mouldings set within an architectural frame comprising a square-headed, battlemented frame with carved spandrels and crocketed pinnacles to either side. Above this frame, the steeply pitched scar of the former 14th-century porch remains visible. To the right of the door in the porch inner west wall is a recess with a sept-foiled pointed head within a square frame with traceried spandrels, probably reset from the 14th-century porch. The inner door is plank and cover strip construction, dating to the 15th or 16th century, with a small depressed-ogee-headed wicket door on the left.

The embattled west tower has diagonal buttresses to the northwest and southwest and a stair turret to the southeast. The west and bell stage windows have pointed heads, hoodmoulds with headstops and Perpendicular tracery. The eastern window in the bell stage is smaller and simpler.

The interior is heavily restored but retains much medieval woodwork. A very tall double-chamfered tower arch opens into the nave. The nave roof is a tie-beam design with intermediate trusses. The main trusses have curved braces below the tie, supported on moulded stone corbels, curved braces above the tie-beam, a moulded ridge, and one tier of moulded purlins. The intermediate trusses are of false hammerbeam design with carved angels. Some of the tie beams appear to be medieval, but the rest is 19th-century work.

The chancel arch is double chamfered with octagonal responds with moulded capitals. The former rood door with a four-centred head survives in the northeast corner of the nave, and a piscina with a foiled head in a square frame is in the southeast corner. The 15th-century screen survives. The chancel has a canted ceiled wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs. The moulded wallplate is medieval, and there may be medieval fabric behind the present ceiling.

The principal fittings include a late 15th or 16th-century chancel piscina with an almost flat cusped arch and embattled cornice, and dropped sill chancel sedilia. The nave piscina dates to the 14th or 15th century and has a foiled pointed head in a square frame. The 15th-century chancel screen features coved top and cusped and crocketed ogee arches. It was repaired in the 1920s when a new cornice was added. A good set of 15th-century benches survives, low with traceried ends and back panels. Two unusual scratch dials to the east of the south door feature Roman numerals. The 15th-century octagonal font has simple quatrefoils on each face, held together by an iron band around the bowl. The 17th-century communion rails have turned balusters. A simple 17th-century timber polygonal pulpit stands on a short post, with each face divided into two panels with an arch in the upper panel. The hourglass stand survives on the wall above it. The reading desk is made up of two panels formerly part of the pulpit door. The north choir stalls have 17th-century panelled backs and plainer panelled fronts; the south choir stalls are 19th-century with blind trefoil-headed panelling. Graffiti depicting a windmill appears by the chancel south window. The floors are a mix of bricks and pamments (clay floor tiles). The nave windows contain some floral quarries, mostly 19th or early 20th-century.

The church underwent substantial rebuilding in the 14th century, when the lavishness of the north door suggests considerable money was spent. The unusual position of the priest's door on the north may be connected with the position of the rectory on that side. The church was further remodelled and refurnished in the 15th century, when the tower and rood screen were added. The pulpit and altar rails evidence refitting in the 17th century.