Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Great Thurlow

This is a parish church with excellent medieval fabric, primarily of the 15th century but retaining a rare example of an unextended Norman chancel from the 12th century. The building comprises a nave with a west tower, north and south aisles, a north porch, and a short chancel with a north vestry. It is constructed of flint rubble with stone quoins and has tiled roofs. The church was substantially restored in 1741, 1880, and 1956.

The west tower is embattled and of two stages. The lower stage is very tall with diagonal buttresses, a west window, but notably no west door. The upper stage has a Perpendicular window in each face—a single light to the east and two lights on the other three sides. A small open lead cupola, probably of the 18th century, sits on top of the tower.

The nave is Perpendicular in style with an embattled parapet and square-headed two-light clerestory windows. The south aisle has a plain parapet, diagonal buttresses, an uncusped three-light east window, and a chamfered south door with a connecting path to the adjacent Hall. The north aisle has an embattled parapet, diagonal buttresses, uncusped two and three-light windows, and a north buttress. The north porch features a plain parapet with a chamfered outer opening and a double chamfered north door in a square frame with carved spandrels. The north door is a 15th-century plank and cover strip door.

The short chancel is exceptional in that it retains its original Norman plan and has not been extended. It has a coped parapet, a three-light late Perpendicular east window, and a three-light uncusped south window. The 12th-century angle shafts at the northeast and southeast corners are evidence of the original Norman structure. The north vestry has a north door, a two-light square-headed east window, and an octagonal chimney in the angle between the nave and chancel.

Interior

The interior is painted and plastered. The chancel arch was rebuilt in the 19th century in a Decorated style with many tiny mouldings, moulded capitals, and polygonal responds. The four-bay north and south arcades have chamfered arches that die into lozenge-shaped piers. The tall tower arch dates from the late 14th or early 15th century and has a moulded arch with capitals on polygonal responds; its lower section is closed by a 17th-century screen. The nave has a 19th-century tie beam roof with embattled tie beams, collars, and timber wall posts below the ties. The chancel roof is a 19th-century boarded wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs with a carved, embattled wall plate. The aisle roofs are 19th-century, virtually flat, and divided into panels by moulded beams and ribs.

Principal Fittings

The font is a square structure, probably of the 12th century, with tall narrow blind arcading in an early 12th-century style. Its corner shafts are very similar to those on the exterior of the chancel. A screen enclosing the east end of the south aisle is largely 20th-century, though its top beam is early 17th-century. A 17th-century panelled screen closes the tower arch with a balustraded gallery. The pulpit is 17th-century, polygonal with two tiers of panelling on a later stone base. Simple 19th-century choir stalls feature shouldered ends and poppyhead finials, with traceried and buttressed fronts. Nave benches are 19th-century with square ends, moulded tops, and traceried panels with buttresses. A 1950s reredos has a gilded frame with Corinthian pilasters supporting an inscribed cornice, with kneeling putti holding candle holders at the corners and a centrally patterned textile panel. The communion rail is 20th-century with turned balusters in a late 17th-century style.

The organ dates from 1782 and was made by Holdich of London, with a restoration in 1981.

The church contains interesting stained glass, including fragments of medieval glass reset in the southeast chapel and north aisle. A fine painted armorial window of 1741 records the beautification of the church by James Vernon, Esq., Lord of the Manor. A further inscription below records the restoration work of Ronald and Florence Vestey in 1956. The south aisle contains a window signed by J Cameron of London, dated 1899, and another of 1921. Early 20th-century glass appears in the north aisle, with an east window by Harry Harvey of York dated 1958. Russian silver chandeliers hang in the nave. Medieval graffiti has been whitewashed over.

Monuments

The church contains good monuments including a c.1460–70 brass to John and Margery Gedding, and another to Thomas Underhill and his wife Anne, dated c.1530. A 20th-century monument to Florence Vestey in the southeast chapel is a large oval in alabaster with coloured metal arms at the top and a dove in polished aluminium. A monument to Ronald Vestey is a small sculpture of a shepherd and his sheep on a wall bracket, created by Dame Elisabeth Frink and dated 1990.

History

Great Thurlow church appears in Domesday Book. The earliest surviving fabric is 12th-century, suggesting that an Anglo-Saxon timber church was rebuilt after the Norman Conquest. Unusually, the Norman chancel was never extended, although the rest of the church was substantially rebuilt. The reason for this is unclear. The church was refurnished in 1741 by James Vernon, Lord of the Manor, further restored in the 1880s, and restored and rearranged in the 1950s to designs by Laurence Bond. The Vestey family were patrons in the mid-20th century.