Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This is a parish church of medieval foundation, comprising a nave, chancel, south porch and west tower. The walls are built in flint with ragstone, dressed with freestone. The nave walls retain remains of coursing, particularly visible on the north side. The chancel was refaced in the 19th century with large knapped flints mixed with rubble stone. The roofs are plain-tiled, with two small 19th-century stove chimneys protruding from the southern slope. Crosses crown the eastern gables of both nave and chancel.

The south porch dates to the 15th century and is constructed in black knapped flint with a base of flushwork panels. Its south face features squared black knapped flints set into traceried flushwork panels. Stone-faced diagonal buttresses support the structure, and a high embattled parapet is decorated with flushwork panels bearing various motifs. Three empty canopied niches are arranged in a row above the 19th-century restored doorway. The interior has an open timber roof with miniature king posts and moulded rafters.

The Norman south doorway is particularly significant, with two orders of shafts; the two outer shafts are decorated with zig-zag patterns, and the right-hand shaft also carries three intervening decorated bands. The capitals are scalloped, and the arch has three enriched orders with a base for a statue above. Small square recesses for a cross-bar are cut into the inner side of each door jamb.

The nave has diagonal buttresses at its east and west ends. The line of an earlier, higher roof is visible on the east face of the tower. Two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery appear on the south side.

The south side of the chancel has two 2-light windows, one rectangular and the other with ogee-headed lights in a rectangular frame. Between them stands a plain 19th-century restored priest's door. Two diagonal buttresses in kidney flint and freestone were added to the east end of the chancel, probably when the large 19th-century east window was inserted. A small vestry is built against the north wall.

The church underwent extensive restoration in 1863, when both nave and chancel roofs were replaced, along with the pulpit, lectern and benches.

The chancel arch is plain and narrow, with Norman character, resting on imposts with nook shafts. A wide, shallow recess on its north side may have served as a side altar. The north wall of the nave contains a tall narrow empty niche and a cut-away recess for the former rood loft stairs.

A very fine octagonal 14th-century font is decorated with delicate traceried panels around the shaft and bowl, and a Crucifixion on the eighth side. It has a low, renewed base.

On the south side of the chancel stands a 14th-century piscina with a cusped ogee head. To the left of the priest's door is the brass of George Duke, dated 1594. To the right of the door, the deep sill and surround of the window show traces of colour and patterns. On the north side is a square recess and two fine monuments: one to Robert Rushbrook, 1753, and another to two of his daughters.

Late 17th-century communion rails with twisted balusters remain in situ. Four 15th-century benches with poppy-heads and animals on the ends have been reused as choir stalls.

The tower is 14th-century, small, square and unbuttressed, arranged in three stages with a plain embattled parapet faced in black knapped flint. A stair turret in Tudor red brick is built out on the south side, with two paired slit windows and a conical roof. The west window has been renewed; traces of an earlier window above show a triangular head outlined in red bricks. A quatrefoil window appears on the west face in the second stage, and a 2-light window in Decorated style is on each face of the top stage. The tower arch has been restored. A 16th-century studded plank door provides access to the stair turret.

The original late 15th or early 16th-century bell-frame remains in heavy timberwork with arched intersecting braces. The tower contains three bells.