Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Parish church with Lady Chapel, tower, and south aisle dating from before 1150, with later medieval additions and major 19th and early 20th century reconstruction. The building is constructed primarily in knapped flint with stone dressings, limestone, and red brick, with tile roofs throughout.

The church consists of a nave with western baptistry, chancel, north aisle with porch, north vestries with polygonal turret, south aisle (originally the nave), outer south aisle (originally the south aisle), tower with south porch, and Lady Chapel (originally the chancel). The nave is arranged in five bays with flint and ashlar aisle buttresses and ashlar clerestory buttresses running into the north aisle parapet at angles. Tall ashlar parapets run along the building, with the west end of the nave featuring crocketed finials on drum shafts. Three-light aisle windows have flowing panel tracery under pointed arches, while clerestory windows sit under depressed arches.

The gabled north porch has its entrance under a depressed arch with flanking diagonal buttresses. The gable end is rendered in ashlar with a recessed panel featuring a running ogival frieze, a moulded parapet, and knob finial, with single lights under flat hood moulds to east and west returns.

Two-storey vestries stand to the north, with an entrance flanked by a panel-traceried window under a single-storey tiled roof, set against a tall polygonal stair turret in ashlar that rises above the parapet. The turret has single foiled lights to each stage, terminating in an octagonal lantern with a light to each face under a copper roof with tall finial. To the west, a tall mullion and transomed panel-traceried window runs the full height of the building. Above the entrance is a tall light with attenuated panel tracery under a pronounced hood mould. A pair of similar windows flanks the east end above a single-storey vestry room. Rainwater heads are dated 1892.

The chancel has angle buttresses with blind traceried finials flanking a five-light panel-traceried window with flush ashlar cill, impost and median bands. A foundation stone dated 3 October 1891 marks the start of reconstruction. The gable end has a crocketed finial and cross. A six-light western window with panel tracery sits under a four-centred arch. A polygonal baptistry sits beneath with north and south doorways and three three-light windows treated as western aisle windows under pointed arches. Stepped buttresses at the angles rise through a string course as slender offset shafts set against the parapet, each terminating in a crocketed finial. The south elevation of the 1890s build is treated as the north.

The Lady Chapel, formerly the chancel, dates from the late 12th to early 13th century with many later alterations. Early flint rubble appears in the lower stages. South windows replaced earlier blocked lights with two panel-traceried flat-arched windows of the 1890s. The east window retains fragments of late 14th-century three-light tracery, with the remainder being 1890s work.

The embattled tower rises in three stages. The lower stage, largely obscured, is said to be 12th century, while the upper stages date from the 18th century. The ringing chamber stage is in flint with stone dressings and a single light. The bell stage is cement-rendered with a single opening to each face in a stone architrave and an embattled stone parapet. A faceted copper spire crowns the tower.

The south porch, in flint with a tile roof, is largely a 19th-century restoration of a 16th or 17th-century structure. The entrance arch mirrors the design of the north porch. Above is a two-light dormer under a half-hipped tile roof.

The south aisle has lower courses in flint over a brick base mixed with limestone. An 18th-century clerestory or gallery in brick, part chequerwork, was rebuilt in red brick above. Eighteenth-century buttresses remain, along with a blocked doorway, probably 14th-century. Flanking round-headed windows with brick and stone dressings and varying heights include one set in a square-headed opening now blocked in limestone and a small rectangular opening. A range of four gallery windows sits under brick round-headed arches with brick keystones, an impost band of brick and stone, and a continuous brick cill band. To the east is a single window of similar proportion with stone dressings, with two similar windows below. The west wall is rendered and lined as ashlar.

The interior features a five-bay arcade of quatrefoil piers on tall bases with a trussed roof in which alternate bays have pierced spandrels. The rood screen and cross, dating to around 1914 by G.F. Bodley, was painted and decorated by Ninian Comper in 1931. Above stands a Christ in Majesty painted by Comper in 1947.

The chancel has a pierced unglazed four-bay clerestory to the north. A triptych reredos of around 1900 by Bodley has panels painted by Comper in 1931–32. An altar cross dates to 1892 by Reginald Blomfield. An aumbry is from around 1921 by Comper. A wrought-iron chancel grille dates to 1931–33 by Comper. An organ loft of 1931–38 by Comper features a vaulted canopy supported on slender columns, all painted and decorated with figures of saints, leading to the western baptistry. A marble octagonal font, probably by Bodley, has a gilded and painted cover by Comper.

The south aisle arcade comprises three bays of late 12th to early 13th-century work with polygonal piers and responds featuring crocketed and waterleaf capitals. The rear arch of a blocked 14th-century doorway in the south wall sits behind render. A 12th to 13th-century arch to the Lady Chapel from the base of the tower possibly represents the former sanctuary of the original two-cell church. An 18th-century wrought-iron screen and gates give access to the Lady Chapel. The Lady Chapel has a three-bay crown post roof with a moulded wall plate, with a south-east corbel in the form of a head and a north-east corbel as a lion's head. A trefoil-headed piscina and aumbry are present. An early 18th-century reredos with pilasters supporting a segmental pediment was painted and gilded by Comper in 1936. An 18th-century wrought-iron communion rail is also present.

Monuments include a Gaynesford monument, a chest tomb with brasses above to Nicholas Gaynesford, who died in 1497, and a Scawen monument of 1722 to William Scawen featuring an aedicule with Corinthian columns flanking a panel with a cherub on a gadrooned base, clouds and angels above, surmounted by a garlanded cartouche and a reclining figure with a skull below. A Fellowes monument, resited from the east end of the nave and dating to 1724, takes the form of an obelisk bearing arms on a gadrooned basin with flanking urns. Other monuments include tablets to Edmund Hoskins (died 1664), Dorothy Burrish (died 1685), and Henry Herringman (died 1703) by W. Kidwell.

An 18th-century polygonal oak pulpit features a swept stair and tester by Comper. Stained glass is predominantly by Kempe, notably in the Lady Chapel of 1895 and 1900, except for windows in the north aisle and northern baptistry, which are by Comper. Bells include six of 1804 by Thomas Mears of Whitechapel and two of 1845 by Charles Oliver.

The nave, chancel, north aisle, vestries, and most of the outer south aisle were rebuilt in 1891–94 and 1910–14 by Arthur and Reginald Blomfield in Perpendicular style, with fittings by G.F. Bodley and Ninian Comper. Earlier phases include pre-1150 work in the Lady Chapel and tower, later 12th-century additions, 12th to 13th-century work, later 14th to early 15th-century work, 18th-century alterations (1723–25), 1836 work, and 1862 modifications.