Parish Church Of All Saints

Parish Church of All Saints

This parish church at Babbacombe was designed by William Butterfield and built between 1868 and 1874. It is constructed of snecked local grey limestone rubble with yellow sandstone dressings and has a natural slate roof with crested ridge tiles. The porch roof features bands of slate and lead.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a south-east transept, north-east vestry, and south-west porch. The north side displays a 6-bay aisle with buttresses featuring set-offs and gables. The windows are in the Decorated style with traceried designs, paired in one bay with varying head tracery forms. The western bay has a more domestic 2-light window. Four gabled quatrefoil clerestory windows were added after Butterfield's time. A gabled vestry is formed as a transept with a large chimneystack on the east side and a sexagonal turret topped with a pyramidal stone roof and carved finial. The turret is integrated with a lean-to porch featuring a shouldered doorway with the original door intact. On the north side, a 3-centred arched doorway is flanked by two unglazed quatrefoil windows and topped by 3-light traceried windows.

The chancel is buttressed, with its east wall decorated with diapering in stone quatrefoils. The 5-light traceried east window features shafts on the mullions. The south return of the chancel is ornamented with stone lattice work and two vessica windows. The south side is the principal elevation, with the south transept displaying a gabled buttress positioned between 2-light traceried windows. The south aisle consists of four bays beneath a lean-to roof, with traceried Decorated windows and four clerestory windows matching those on the north. The south-west porch has a hipped roof with set-back gabled buttresses, moulded outer and inner doorways, the outer featuring engaged shafts with a recessed panel of stone diapering above the arch. The 2-leaf inner door retains its original ornamental strap hinges.

The west tower is four stages tall with a stone spire featuring tall louvred lucarnes. A projecting south-east 5-sided stair turret has set-back buttresses that rise to the belfry stage. The west doorway is richly moulded with a cinquefoil head and original ironwork. Above it rises a tall 2-light traceried window flanked by two cusped roundels. Below the belfry stage is diaper stonework with a vessica window. The belfry window is a 3-light design in Geometric Decorated tracery with marble panels below the sill, and the upper tier of the belfry is diapered.

The interior is spectacular for its elaborate surface treatment and constructional polychromy. The arcades have cylindrical marble columns supporting double-chamfered arches. The arcade walls feature septfoils in the spandrels covered with blind tracery over patterned brick and tiles. The nave and chancel roofs are 5-sided with painted decoration, while the aisle roofs have stone ribs and paired rafters. Large 2-light traceried arches connect the chancel aisles to the chancel.

The chancel has been described by Goodhart-Rendel as "beyond all praise in its inspired strangeness" and features a marble dado, diapered walls, marble floor, aumbry, sedilia, and a painted ceiling.

Fittings and decorations include a marble reredos integral with the east wall decoration featuring a cinquefoil-headed recess for a metal crucifix. The lectern, candlesticks, and altar cross date to 1871 and were designed by Butterfield. Chancel mosaics are by Salviati. Metalwork includes seven elaborate hanging lamps and a processional cross. The nave contains an openwork pulpit composed of tiers of shafts and arcades, and an extraordinary polychromatic marble font with tiers of arcading on shafts. A large cope chest is also present. Various 19th-century wall monuments of interest are located at the east end of the north aisle, including a memorial brass to Anna Maria Hanbury (died 1877), designed by Butterfield. The east window dates to 1874 and is by Gibbs.

Pevsner describes this as "one of Butterfield's most important churches".