Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This church has late medieval or earlier origins, with a tower added in 1765. The building was described as "lately rebuilt" in 1798 according to Hasted. It underwent thorough rebuilding of the nave and addition of a north aisle in 1875 by Robert Medley Fulford of Devon. A chancel arch was added in 1885, and some alteration occurred in 1967 associated with the beginning of a programme to re-glaze the church with windows designed by Marc Chagall.

The chancel is constructed of sandstone brought to course with sandstone dressings. The nave has sandstone blocks to sill level with Flemish bond brick above. The tower is built in Flemish bond brick with blue headers on sandstone footings. The north aisle is sandstone rubble. All are covered with slate roofs.

The plan consists of a chancel, nave, west tower, three-bay north aisle, and south porch. The chancel masonry is probably medieval, and Pevsner suggests that the sandstone footings of the nave may be the foundations of the medieval church. In 1765 an appeal was made for £1,125 for rebuilding, and the form of the nave and chancel barrel roofs may date from this 1760s phase. Fulford's contribution was to re-gothicize the church with a mixture of Decorated and Perpendicular style windows, and to add the north aisle in a late 13th or early 14th-century style with a baptistry at the west end. The east window was altered in 1967 for the insertion of glass to commemorate Sarah Venetia d'Avigdor Goldsmid. The church was restored in the late 1960s and 1970s, with work supervised by Robert Potter.

The chancel has angle buttresses with set-offs and a round-headed east window dated 1967, with the gable evidently rebuilt at that date. The south side has a 19th-century two-light Decorated style window to the east with flush tracery, trefoil-headed lights and a quatrefoil in the head, and a one-light 19th-century trefoil-headed Decorated style window to the west. Between the windows is an arched moulded priests' doorway with a hoodmould and a 19th-century door of overlapping planks with strap hinges. The north side of the chancel has two one-light Decorated style trefoil-headed windows. The nave is symmetrical with 19th-century brick buttresses with stone set-offs to left and right, and two three-light 19th-century Perpendicular style windows with hoodmoulds and uncarved label stops.

A 19th-century gabled porch with deep eaves and a peg-tile roof has a coursed sandstone base below a timber structure with glazed cusped lights. The outer doorway is tall and segmental-headed; the inner doorway is moulded with a Tudor arch and a 19th-century plank and cover strip door. The north aisle has a lean-to roof and an angle buttress at the east corner. The westernmost bay (the baptistry) is marked off by buttresses with set-offs. A string course runs below the Decorated style windows: two-light east and west windows each have trefoil-headed lights below a flush tracery quatrefoil, while the centre window to the aisle is three-light and the outer windows are two-light, all with trefoil-headed lights. The two-stage west tower has a plain parapet and a tile-hung bell-shaped spirelet. Diagonal buttresses with stone footings and stone copings to the set-offs run the height of the tower, with a string course above the bottom stage. The west face has a recessed 19th or 20th-century two-leaf door with a Tudor arch and cover strips. The north and south faces have round-headed belfry windows; the north face also has a round-headed window to the bottom stage and a 19th-century trefoil-headed window below the belfry opening.

Interior walls are plastered. An 1885 moulded chancel arch with a hoodmould and carved label stops by Wadmore and Baker springs from engaged shafts with waterleaf capitals and bases. The three-bay north aisle of 1875 has octagonal sandstone piers on moulded bases with moulded caps and three-centred moulded arches. The first pier from the west has an unusual corbel projection on the south side. A plain round-headed tower arch leads to the tower. Plain barrel ceilings cover the nave and chancel; the nave ceiling was marbled in green and yellow in 1967 by Robert Potter, possibly restoring existing 18th-century marbled decoration. The chancel has a presumably 19th-century sedilia on the south side formed by dropping the sill of the eastern window. The altar is a plain 20th-century table. A communion rail with turned balusters, described by Pevsner as late 17th-century but perhaps with a later handrail, is present. The nave has a timber drum pulpit with some re-used 17th-century panels decorated with scratch-moulded intersecting triangles. A set of plain 20th-century benches furnishes the nave. The font, in the westernmost bay of the north aisle, is probably 19th-century: octagonal on a stem with a moulded base, and the faces of the bowl are carved with blind tracery. The tower preserves original 18th-century ceiling beams and joists and includes two 19th-century windows that were re-sited and are now artificially lit from behind when the Chagall glass was introduced; one is probably by Clayton and Bell of about 1880, and the other dates to circa 1860s. Royal Arms in a nowy-headed frame appear over the tower arch.

A monument to George Fane, died 1571, is set in the north wall of the chancel. It is a tomb-chest decorated with strapwork panels divided by pilasters. Above the chest is a canopy with Ionic columns and an entablature, noted by Pevsner as an early example of correct classical detail. The inscription is carved in relief on the chest, and some original colour survives. A brass to Thomas Stydolf, died 1475, with two small figures, is also present. A Purbeck marble matrix is all that survives of a second brass. The nave has two 18th-century marble wall monuments, one on either side of the south door.

The church contains a remarkable glazing programme of European importance to the designs of Marc Chagall. The east window of 1967 is the earliest and was commissioned by Sir Henry and Lady D'Avigdor Goldsmid to commemorate their daughter, who was drowned in a sailing accident in 1963. The window frames are irregular to avoid the usual grid effect. The lower half of the window is blue and shows a girl floating in the sea with mourning figures around it. The crucifixion, mostly yellow, is shown above, with a rearing horse at the foot of the cross. The patron commissioned a further seven windows for the aisle and nave, installed in 1974. These are abstract designs with wonderful colours, mostly yellow on the south side of the church and blue in the north aisle. In 1985 a further four windows for the chancel by Chagall were installed, mostly blue.