Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Church built 1875–77 by the architects Burton and Stevens of Bournemouth, commissioned by Henry Bury for the developing suburb of Branksome Park. A porch was added in 1928. The building is constructed of coursed squared Purbeck stone with limestone dressings and has a tiled roof with ornamental crestings.

The plan comprises an apsed chancel, a vestry and organ chamber to the northwest of the chancel, a nave, and a western porch. The design follows the Decorated Gothic Revival style.

The two-bay chancel has a five-sided apse with offset buttresses terminating in trefoiled gablets. The apse is lit by two-light windows with cusped heads to the lights, quatrefoils to the head and hoodmoulds with label stops. A pair of similar windows lights the south side of the chancel. The two-storey vestry and organ chamber on the north side of the chancel has a hipped roof and is lit by paired lancet windows to the east side at upper level and three similar lancets to the north side. It features a chamfered doorway to the north and a three-light stone mullion window at lower level to the west side. A twentieth-century extension to the east side and offset angle buttresses have been added.

The five-bay nave has two-light windows with cusped heads to the lights and, alternating between bays, trefoils in spherical triangles and encircled quatrefoils to the heads, all with hoodmoulds and label stops. A wheel window of eight spokes with trefoiled heads to the divisions and a central quatrefoil lights the west gable. Above this is a pointed ventilation slit, and a single bellcote sits at the apex with a stone-coped gable, kneelers and foliated gable cross. The western door has two orders of shafts, a double keel-moulded head and hoodmould, now contained within a porch with a chamfered doorway to the north and a larger doorway to the west with chamfered jambs, moulded head and hoodmould. Offset buttresses flank the western end of the nave and occur between bays. The nave has stone-coped gables with kneelers and foliated gable crosses to the east end. A plinth, chamfered stone eaves and a corbel table run around the nave.

The interior features nave and chancel with pitch pine hammerbeam roofs resting on wall shafts. The chancel has a two-bay arcade at upper level to the organ chamber with a central pier of quatrefoil section and shafts to the responds. Below is the vestry door, which has one order of shafts and a keelmoulded head. The chancel arch has responds of trefoil section and a many-moulded head.

Among the fittings is a limestone reredos to the high altar with paired alabaster colonnettes, pinnacles, a corbel table and an inset relief panel depicting the Last Supper. The chancel contains a fine set of late nineteenth-century stained-glass windows depicting various saints, all of uniform design, with stencilled walls below (renewed). A brass double corona chandelier hangs in the chancel. A low wrought-iron chancel screen on a stone base with brass enrichments matches a brass lectern. A polygonal limestone pulpit with red marble shafts and foliage ornament to the cornice stands in the nave. The font bowl originates from the Church of St Edmund, Salisbury, and is of Purbeck marble. The bowl is octagonal with paired blank arches to the sides featuring round trefoil heads. The nineteenth-century circular stem has four short serpentine shafts with limestone foliage capitals and moulded bases, set on an octagonal plinth.

The church was built for Henry Bury of Branksome Towers to serve the exclusive new suburb being developed on his estate. The first incumbent, Edward Bury, was a member of the family. All Saints' represents a very complete and well-furnished small church of the 1870s, little altered and set in an unusually attractive setting.