Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of late 13th-century and 14th-century origin, with later additions and interior restoration carried out in 1879. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a south porch, and a west tower.

The exterior is constructed in rubble flint, some knapped, with freestone dressings, and red brick to the clerestory; the roofs are slate. The north aisle features squat diagonal buttresses, a crenellated parapet, and a 4-light east window with depressed flowing tracery containing mouchettes. The north door is pointed with a simple continuous curve. The south aisle is of the same date as the north aisle (late 13th century) and displays similar buttresses, crenellations, and restored windows; it has a 2-light east window with trefoil-headed lights.

The nave clerestory is battlemented and constructed in Tudor brick, with seven 2-light windows featuring intersecting tracery with trefoil-headed lights and hood-moulds. A small square recess sits between each pair of windows. The porch underwent extensive restoration in the 19th century.

The chancel has diagonal buttresses at its east end and a 3-light east window of approximately 1300, comprising three stepped lancets beneath a single arch. Two 2-light windows on the north and south sides of the chancel have trefoil-headed lights set in rectangular surrounds. Low-side windows below both south windows are now glazed but remain rebated for shutters on both the interior and exterior.

The narrow 14th-century tower has diagonal buttresses at the west end, stepped in three stages and faced in black knapped flint and freestone, with a gabled top. A stair turret with a conical roof projects on the south face. The west face carries a 2-light window with a series of holes in the stone surround, seemingly for lattice infill, an empty niche with a trefoil head above it, and above that a small trefoil-headed window. The top stage of the tower is an early 19th-century addition, faced in chequerwork of black knapped flint and freestone blocks, with a crenellated parapet topped by Grecian urns at the angles. Each face has a wide single-light window with a rounded head.

The interior of the nave features a 14th-century arcade of four bays to each aisle, with octagonal piers whose moulded bases rest on high square blocks of brickwork; the arches are double-chamfered. A fine 15th-century hammer-beam roof is integrated with the clerestory. Between each pair of clerestory windows is a raised pilaster with a canopied capital supporting a carved and painted figure that holds the arched brace of a hammer beam. The hammer-beams themselves are carved and painted as recumbent figures of kings and musicians wearing ermine collars and holding musical instruments, books, and other objects. A deep cornice in two tiers features carving, colouring, and brattishing. The easternmost bay has additional decoration forming a canopy of honour. The roof has a shallow pitch, and arched braces spring from the tops of the hammer-beams to collars set very high.

The seating, font, and pulpit are all Victorian. Behind the pulpit are the stairs to the rood-loft, the upper part of which remains open; the cut-off ends of both the rood-beam and candle-beam are visible in the walls and at the sides of the chancel arch, which is high and plain. A sharply-pointed arch at the base of the tower served as a ringing-chamber and contains six bells.

Both aisles have roofs with plain joists and moulded main cross-beams supported by arched braces resting on wall capitals; carved bosses occur at the intersection of the main timbers. A fine medieval door to the tower stairs at the back of the south aisle retains original interlaced ironwork and hinge. The south aisle also contains a Jacobean altar-table at its east end, a piscina with a trefoil-headed niche, and a memorial east window with stained glass by Kempe dated 1905.

The chancel was restored in the 19th century. Memorial stained glass of 1890 appears in the east window. A piscina with trefoil-headed niche matches that in the south aisle. The chancel roof has rafters with additional scissor-bracing. On the north wall is a marble monument to Thomas Raymond (died 1680), surmounted by a broken pediment and bearing a coat of arms in high relief; Raymond was the first keeper of state papers to Charles II.