All Saints Church

The Church of All Saints is a mediaeval building, significantly restored in 1869. It comprises a nave, chancel, south aisle, north vestry, and south porch. The exterior is primarily flint rubble with freestone dressings. 18th-century repairs are visible, marked by a date stone reading “I.1721.H,” incorporating flint rubble and bands of red brick; further alterations occurred in 1869, utilizing rounded flints, tile-stitching, and brick rubble. The roofs are covered in plain tiles. A semi-circular inner arch at the north nave doorway suggests possible Norman origins. The south aisle was added around 1300, featuring 2-light hood-moulded windows, a hood-moulded doorway, a double piscina with a dropped window sill seat, a lancet west window, and diagonal pedimented buttresses. The triple nave arcade, dating from around 1300, showcases double chamfered arches supported by octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases. Plain chamfered doorways from the 13th or 14th century are located in the north nave and the north and south chancel walls. A piscina in the chancel, late 14th century, underwent substantial restoration around 1900. The nave roof was rebuilt around 1500, demonstrating principal rafters, arch-braced collars and tie-beams, a moulded cornice, purlins, and a ridge. A 3-light east aisle window was inserted in the early 16th century. An open-gabled timber-framed south porch was added in 1861. Further alterations in 1869 included reconstruction of the east chancel wall with a 3-light window in a 14th-century style, a west nave wall incorporating an elaborate limestone bell-cote on a parapet-gable, a parapet-gabled vestry, a scissor-braced coupled rafter chancel roof, and a king-post and tie-beam aisle roof. C15 wall-paintings are visible on the north nave wall above the doorway, featuring large figures of St. Christopher and St. George and the Dragon. A C12 limestone font has a circular shaft and a chamfered square bowl with a scalloped soffit, with some C15 sunk tracery carved on one face. A C19 organ seat has been created from a section of a traceried C15 oak screen. Stained glass dating to around 1850 is present in most windows; a south chancel window incorporates some glass from around 1500. A wall tablet in the chancel commemorates Arthur Young of Bradfield Hall (died 1759), featuring an apron, crown, and flanking scrolls. Five simple white marble wall tablets in the chancel and vestry are dedicated to members of his family, who died between 1785 and 1851.