Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a Grade I listed building located on High Street in Birling. It dates from the early 14th century, with additions from the 15th and 16th centuries, and was refitted around 1828. The church is constructed from random and dressed ragstone and features a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, and a chancel.

The tower has three stages separated by bands and is embattled, with a taller pyramidal-capped octagonal stair turret on the southeast corner. It includes stepped diagonal buttresses and paired lancet belfry openings set in square-headed panels, with a single light window below. The west doorway is moulded and pointed arched, set within a square-headed panel, and is topped by a large two-light arched perpendicular window. The nave is obscured by the aisles, which display an eccentric mix of 15th and 16th-century windows. The chancel was rebuilt in the 16th century and also features a mix of window styles, including a six-light east window.

Inside, the church has a three-bay nave with hollow chamfered arches on octagonal piers and wooden trusses supporting a plastered barrel vault. There is no chancel arch. Notable fittings include a neo-Gothic wooden font cover from 1853, stained glass from the 1840s in the east window, two 16th-century tilting helms with Jacobean crests, poppy-heads on the bench ends, and a brass memorial for Walter Mylys, a civilian who died in 1522. The chancel fittings were added around 1828 in a minimal neo-Gothic style.