Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Lymington

A parish church and attached church hall, built in 1909 to the design of R.H. Romaine-Walker. The church was consecrated in December 1909 and opened the following year, funded by Fanny Haldane (widow of George Haldane, died 1905) and her sister Harriet Spike (died 1899) to serve the westward expansion of Lymington, with the hall intended for use as a Sunday School. The builders were J. McWilliam of Bournemouth.

The church is constructed of rough-faced snecked limestone masonry externally, with Bath stone dressings and masonry to the interior, and slate roofs with copper to the aisles. The design follows a consistent Gothic idiom. The church comprises a six-bay nave with chancel, aisles, a north-east Lady Chapel, a south-east organ loft, and an attached vestry. An open porch at the north-west corner connects to a four-bay church hall with a WC annexe to the north end, which is subtly contrasted in a 17th-century domestic style, expressing the different functions of the two buildings.

The exterior features window tracery in the 14th-century Decorated style, with mouchettes within mandorlas to the upper lights and set-back buttresses between each pair of windows. A small belfry tower stands at the east end of the north aisle, crowned with a crocketed finial. The west end is marked by a door within a hood-mould beneath a pair of windows; triple lancets ventilate the roof-space in the apex of the gable. Gable ends to the east and west bear kneelers, each surmounted with a cross finial.

The interior opens through an entrance porch with spirited carving to the roof boss and capitals, featuring a snarling green man, men and monkeys fighting, evangelists, and medieval heads. The spacious nave, with aisles, is defined by a nave arcade of clustered quatrefoil piers carrying moulded arches, and features a triple E window. The stained timber wagon roof, divided into square compartments with moulded ribs, is continuous the length of the church with no chancel arch. Moulded surrounds to the north-west and west doors are enriched with characterful carvings of tradesmen: a carpenter with saw, a smith with vice, a mason with hammer and chisel, and a stone-carver carving a gargoyle, appearing to be portraits. The belfry tower roof in the north-east corner features a carefully detailed ribbed vault with central boss. The floor is parquetry throughout.

The reredos is of Caen stone and comprises a Late Gothic tabernacle with a central figure of Christ flanked by six smaller saints, all set within traceried canopies; projecting sides on piers display two orders of angels within canopies. An octagonal oak pulpit with blind traceried panels stands on stone steps and an octagonal base. Choir stalls and choir screens are of dark stained oak. A plain octagonal stone font is located at the rear of the church. The nave pewing has been replaced with chairs (early 21st century). The organ is by Norman & Beard.

R.H. Romaine-Walker (1854–1940) was a late Victorian and Edwardian architect who studied under the noted High Victorian architect George Edmund Street, designer of the Law Courts on The Strand. The son of a vicar, Romaine-Walker's earliest church work was for his father's St Saviour, Pimlico, where he oversaw internal alterations in 1882–83. He is best known for his country houses, including the noted Rhinefield Lodge of 1888–90 (the nearest to All Saints), Danesfield near Medmenham in Berkshire, and in 1910 he rebuilt the main staircase at Chatsworth. He also designed the Edwardian extensions to the Tate Gallery. Romaine-Walker's most comparable building to All Saints is the church of St John the Evangelist, Upper Parkstone, Dorset, of 1902–03, designed in partnership with Besant; similarly comparable is their more opulent St Saviour's, Brockenhurst (consecrated 1905).