Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints, Grayswood

This church was built in 1901–2 and designed by Swedish architect Axel Haig. It is executed in 13th-century style with Arts and Crafts elements, constructed from squared rock-faced Bargate stone rubble with freestone dressings. The roof is tiled with sprocketted eaves; the tower features a timber-framed belfry stage and shingled spire.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel, with a south-east tower containing an organ chamber at its base. A south-east vestry with its own porch adjoins the chancel, and a north-east transept has a boiler room on its east face with a stack.

The exterior displays lancet windows and buttresses to the nave. The north transept has a 2-light plate-traceried north window and a similar chamfered west window; the east window is of 3-light Geometric Decorated style. The tower is in two stages: the belfry stage is timber-framed with louvered openings and carries a broach spire with hooded ventilators. The south-east porch is gabled to the east with a carved demi-figure in the gable. The boiler room has a catslide roof with a hipped north end and square-headed openings; a corner stack, gabled to the north, has a round chimney shaft. The south-west porch has a steep gable with an incised cross. Its outer doorway has an arch carried on paired shafts and retains an original 2-leaf inner door beneath a segmental arch.

Inside, the chancel arch is roll-moulded stone on chamfered responds, decorated with carved heads and stops. The nave has a boarded wagon roof divided into panels by moulded arch braces on moulded stone corbels; the north transept and chancel have similar roofs. The truss west of the north transept is doubled and supported on wide carved stone corbels forming statue niches with painted timber statues. A 2-bay stone arcade opens into the north transept; the round pier stands on a very tall stone base with a capital carved with the symbols of the Evangelists, and the responds have richly-carved capitals. Above the pier is a large pierced roundel containing a sculpted stone angel. The chancel features a marble reredos with sculpted demi-figures in square niches and a painted frieze of demi-figures across the east wall. Below the frieze is an embroidered panel (probably original) illustrating the Annunciation. Above the frieze are painted linen canvas figures of Moses and David, possibly by Carl Almquist. Art Nouveau gilded grilles ornament the radiators and pipework in the chancel. The chancel floor is laid in herringbone tiles; floors elsewhere are of woodblock.

Woodwork of high quality includes a low wooden chancel rail combining Early English and classical motifs, an organ case, choir stalls with poppyhead finials, and nave benches with shouldered ends and sunk panels. A polygonal timber pulpit with blind traceried sides stands on a stone stem. The font is octagonal with an unusual deep bowl with alternating flat and convex sides, on a carved base on shafts. A painted wooden sculpture of the Adoration of the Magi is positioned on the chancel wall. The stained glass includes east and north windows by Carl Almquist and a good west window by Kempe.

The church was funded and endowed by Alfred Hugh Harman of Grayswood Place, as recorded on a wall plaque. Haig was a pupil of Burges and a noted engraver. The churchyard wall, lychgate, and monument to Axel Haig are of group value with the church. The building is largely of a single phase and is externally compact with well-crafted fittings and some unusual interior details.