Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This church on Church Street, Whitstable, has stood on the site since the 13th century. The medieval fabric that survives comprises the Perpendicular tower and north aisle arcade, both dating to the 15th century. The rest of the church was largely rebuilt in 1875–76 by Charles Barry Jr., with a south aisle and west porch added in 1962 in a sympathetic style. The interior was reordered in 1984–86.

The walls are constructed of rubble Kentish Ragstone throughout all periods, with evidence of water-scoured beach pebbles visible in the tower. The work features ashlar quoins and dressings, with red tiled roofs. A continuous stone plinth runs around the Victorian work.

Following the 1962 south aisle addition, the church is roughly rectangular in plan, aligned east-west. The dominant feature is the plain but imposing southwest tower, which has served for five centuries as a beacon for seafarers in this coastal town. The tower displays a string course below the parapet, with a pair of cusped lancets to each face of the top stage below a clock, a single lancet at ground floor level, heavy angled buttresses, and evidence of a band halfway up the tower. The south aisle continues for five bays with paired trefoil-headed lancets under hoods. At the east end, the lower 1962 aisle sits to the left, with a central window of trefoil-headed lancets and a cusped light under a moulded hood matching the Victorian north aisle. The 1875 chancel end has a Perpendicular four-centred window under a moulded hood and above a continuous moulded cill, with corner buttresses. The north aisle is recessed with a central nearly rounded pointed arch window containing a pair of trefoil-headed lancets under a cusped light, all under a moulded hood with square headstops. The northeast corner features a flat-roofed vestry to the east and a north porch with cinquefoil cusped circular windows over the door. The west end is pleasingly proportioned with graduated heights stepping down from the dominant corner tower. The nave's west end features a quatrefoil with Kentish cusps, while the advanced central flat-roofed porch of 1962 has a depressed arch and quoins.

Internally, an arched brace timber roof with reinforcing rods and wooden brackets set on stone corbels spans the nave. The aisles feature simple crown post roofs. The nave arcade has octagonal piers and arches moulded with a double wave: the 15th-century example to the north side and the 1962 addition to the south. A higher chancel arch dates from 1875. Victorian floor tiles from the original plan survive, and the chancel has a handsome decorative tiled floor. Victorian choir stalls remain in place. A piscina basin to the south wall may be reused from an earlier building. An 1890s lectern, a gift of a former vicar, features marble colonettes and an oak lectern apparently made from timber salvaged from the medieval roof.

The church contains a number of late-19th and early-20th-century stained glass windows of note. The Browning Memorial window of 1925 in the north wall depicts a red-sailed traditional Thames barge characteristic of Whitstable's seafaring economy, along with a shell and a starfish, set above St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read. The east window of 1884 depicts the Lamb of God. The south aisle contains the St. Augustine window of 1908 and a window of 1875 commemorating Wynn Ellis (of the mausoleum in the churchyard), which features seven roundels and has been reset in the south aisle. The north aisle displays World War I and World War II memorial tablets with names, and a memorial window dedicated to parishioners who died in the First World War.

The tower contains a substantial ladder stair of rough-hewn oak of considerable antiquity. A medieval stone font with a hexagonal shaft and basin on a moulded base stands in the southwest corner. Its early 17th-century cover has an ogee profile and crocketed ribs and has recently been shown to have a painted underside featuring coats of arms. The bells date from 1730, when they were recast by Samuel Knight of Holborn, with one bearing the inscription "S K made me in 1730".

A brass memorial tablet to Thomas Brede, died 1444, is mounted on the south wall.

A timber lych-gate to Church Street, dated 1924 and constructed by Percy Pout, is dedicated to the memory of W Harrington and N Scryngour.

The church was substantially rebuilt in 1875–76 by Charles Barry Jr. following a printed notice of 1875 confirming that only the tower and colonnade of arches from the existing church were to be retained. The west end was underpinned in 1908 and 1914, and a Lady chapel was created in the former organ chamber and vestry. The altar panels were painted around this time by Miss Ethel K. Martyn. In 1921, Emily Holden donated funds to purchase land for a vicarage and to extend the churchyard, which is now one of the largest in Kent. In 1962, further space was needed, and a south aisle and west porch were added with the arcade executed in a sympathetic style with Victorian windows reset into the new south aisle wall. This work was dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, in December 1962. The tower also served as an air raid lookout post during the Second World War.