Lychgate And Churchyard Walls To The Parish Church Of All Saints

TQ 67 41 BRENCHLEY HIGH STREET, BRENCHLEY (south side) 15/99 Lychgate and churchyard walls to the parish Church of All Saints GV II

Lychgate and churchyard walls. Lychgate 1897, commemorating 60 years of Queen Victoria's reign (plaque). Walls probably contemporary. Lychgate rock-faced ragstone and timber with a wooden shingle roof; rock-faced ragstone walls flank the lychgate, churchyard walls to the east brick.

Impressively large and elaborate 2-bay Gothic lychgate opposite the north porch of the church, where the path is lined with clipped yew trees. Outward- curving stone walls flank the gate and are brick on the east boundary wall of the churchyard.

Coped walls to the lychgate support an openwork timber structure of trefoil- headed arcading with decorated wallplates with brattished cornices. The roof, with deep sprocketted eaves, is supported on an arch-braced roof truss with 2 tiers of cusped wind-bracing with cusped, moulded and pierced bargeboards to both faces and to the overhanging eaves. A pair of low timber gates flank the coffin rest with open tracery panels above the middle rails, long ornamental strap hinges and poppy-head styles. A plaque on the coffin rest records that the lychgate was erected by "parishioners and friends", William May, Vicar, Percy Mainwaring, Chairman of the Committee. The stone walls have moulded coping, the brick walls to the east largely concealed by ivy. A plaque on the section of wall immediately east of the lychgate commemorates the "undying fame of the gallant lads who fought the Battle of Britain over this corner of England in August-September 1940".

Listing NGR: TQ6796041757