Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

An Anglican parish church rebuilt and rededicated in 1455, situated on Portland Road in Wyke Regis, Weymouth. The church is constructed of Portland stone ashlar with lead roofs and stone slate to the porch.

The building follows a very regular plan comprising a five-bay nave that is continuous with the chancel and sanctuary, north and south aisles, a west tower, south porch, and northeast vestry.

The west tower rises in four stages with string courses and set-back buttresses. The diagonal top stage is not carried through to the pinnacles, which rise from a crenellated parapet. A northeast octagonal stair turret is carried above the parapet. The west front contains a blocked doorway with a four-centred arch and moulded jambs, beneath a lofty three-light window. Two-light windows with stone louvres occupy the bell stage on each face; the north face window has a Ham stone head. A continuous string label runs around the tower, including the head of the buttresses. The south front features a small light at the second stage and a multangular clock-face. The east face has a small pointed door opening to the roof; this was originally designed to access the inner roof space when the pitch was steeper than it is now.

The nave, chancel, and aisles share a continuous moulded plinth and plain parapet above a string with prominent gargoyles and saddle-back coping; the north nave parapet is rendered. There are no clerestorey windows. Windows throughout are three-light Perpendicular design, except for a five-light window to the chancel, all set beneath drip courses and divided by two-stage weathered buttresses set back at the corners. Tracery in the aisles is uncusped. The chancel has a small priests' door and one three-light window; its north side is covered by the two-storey northeast vestry, which has small square lights at each level in chamfered surrounds. A north doorway is positioned opposite the porch entrance.

The gabled south porch contains a plain pointed doorway in three chamfered orders beneath a small statue niche with an ogee-cusped head. The inner doorway is four-centred, surmounted by a niche with cinquefoil head. The walls are plain with an eaves mould. Stone terminal crosses stand on the west wall of the north aisle and at the chancel's east end.

On the west wall of the north aisle is a large stone memorial tablet in Greek Revival style, signed by architect J. Hamilton. It commemorates the loss of the ship Alexander on 26 March 1815, which sank in West Bay while en route from Bombay to London. The inscription records that 140 souls perished, with the exception of five lascars whose bodies were found and buried near the church.

The interior displays a very consistent design executed in Portland stone. The arcade piers comprise four shafts and four hollows to high bases with small capitals, supporting an arcade in three orders. A continuous moulded cornice runs through the nave, decorated with alternate round and square floral embellishments. The low-pitched panelled roof is supported on short shafts rising from stone corbels, mostly carved with angels. The tower arch features a broad wave mould with shafts and small capitals, a small door to the tower vice, and concrete flooring, now enclosed by a nineteenth-century screen.

The chancel has plain walls with many monuments. A wide plank door with straps and a narrow squint occupy the north side; the south wall contains a piscina or aumbry without an outlet. The south aisle has an ogee-headed stoup to the east of the door and a piscina at its eastern end; above the door hangs a painted stone Royal Arms in high relief. The north aisle contains a plain west wall displaying the Royal Arms of George III and a north doorway on four steps with nosings, beneath a flat four-centred rere-arch. A plank door with slight ogee head, inscribed 1598, provides access. The windows in this aisle are not centred to the arcade bays. An organ occupies the east end. The aisle ceilings are compartmented with a deep longitudinal moulded beam and drops to corbels on each side.

The nineteenth-century pews feature trilobed poppyheads. A tall flared stone octagonal font with Art Nouveau decoration at the panel heads bears a cover inscribed "In loving memory of Oliver Warner and his 4 sons" (undated). There is a plain octagonal pulpit, a brass eagle lectern, and a Communion rail with turned balusters. The church contains no early glass. The east window depicts the Evangelists and Paschal Lamb and is dedicated to Joseph Swaffield, who died in 1841 aged 84; an adjacent south window is of similar date. Many wall and floor tablets are present throughout, including one in the chancel dated 1623.

The church represents a remarkably consistent and virtually unchanged fifteenth-century design. Apart from refurnishing and replacement of the roofs in the eighteenth century and again in 1936, nothing has been added structurally.