Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This parish church in Coleshill dates originally to the late 12th century, with substantial alterations and additions made around 1300, mid-14th century, and mid-15th century. It underwent restoration and further changes in 1715, 1750, 1780–88, and the late 19th century.

The exterior is built in coursed rubble stone for the nave, with larger squared and dressed stone in uneven courses forming the chancel, transept, and lower stage of the tower. The stair turret and top two stages of the tower are faced in ashlar. The gabled roofs are stone-tiled with dressed stone copings.

The plan comprises a two-bay nave, one-bay chancel, west tower, south porch, south transept, and north aisle.

The Perpendicular west tower rises three storeys with diagonal buttresses and moulded string courses. The bell openings are two-light cusped openings with Somerset tracery and dripstones. Gargoyles sit on the string course below a moulded embattled parapet with pinnacles. A two-storey polygonal stair turret projects to the south-east. The Perpendicular west window contains three lights with cusped heads, a dripstone, and carved label stops. The west door has a four-centred arch within a flat-headed hoodmould; the spandrels contain mouchettes. A Regency Gothic wooden door with y-tracery panels now hangs here.

The Decorated south porch rises two storeys beneath a gabled roof. Diagonal buttresses flank the entrance; a sundial is set into the south-west buttress. The porch features one- and two-light ogee-headed lancets, a 19th-century gable coping, and a cross finial. The porch entrance is a plain moulded pointed arch dying into its imposts. An Early English south door with a rounded trefoiled head sits beneath, with good 19th-century ironwork on the plank door.

The Decorated south transept contains a south three-light window (recut from an original) and one purely 19th-century cusped lancet. The chancel south wall has a 19th-century two-light window. A large 18th-century quatrefoil window occupies the chancel east wall. The north wall of the chancel holds one 19th-century lancet and one original blocked Decorated lancet.

The north aisle features late 19th-century three-light windows with curvaceous Perpendicular tracery and a quatrefoiled parapet.

Interior

A tall plainly moulded arch springs from the west tower. Springers for a planned vault survive beneath it, though the ringing stage has a timbered floor. The nave contains a south arcade of Transitional columns with flat-leaved capitals and later double-chamfered arches. The north arcade is of late 13th-century character, with round abaci and double-chamfered arches. A 19th-century gallery spans above the south porch. The chancel arch is double-chamfered on dying imposts. An east window of 1788 is set within 19th-century Early English shafts and capitals. Perpendicular roofs throughout feature braced tie beams on plain stone corbels supporting rafters.

The east window contains stained glass inserted in 1788 depicting the Nativity, brought from Angers. Good early 20th-century stained glass appears in the south transept window.

A fine monument on the south wall of the chancel commemorates Sir Henry Pratt (died 1647) and his wife, executed in white and black marble. Two effigies are shown—she recumbent below, he semi-reclining slightly above. The monument was repaired in 1831. Also on the chancel south wall stands a pyramidal marble monument with cherubs and an oval portrait medallion to Viscountess Folkestone (died 1751), created by Michael Rysbrack. On the north wall of the chancel is an alternated Gothic canopy by Coade and Seely of 1812 to Mark Stuart Pleydell. Eighteenth-century box pews survive in the south transept.