Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Anglican parish church at Maiden Bradley, with origins in the 12th century and significant development through the 14th and 15th centuries, restored in 1845. Built in rubble stone and dressed limestone with a stone slate roof.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, a Lady Chapel to the north, a south vestry, and a south porch.

The 15th-century south porch is gabled with an original ledged door set in a Tudor-arched doorway with carved spandrels and hoodmould. The cornice features gargoyles, and a coped verge displays a lozenge-block sundial. The interior of the porch has an ovolo-moulded segmental-headed doorway to the nave.

The nave has a plain stone 15th-century parapet, though the walls were rebuilt in the 19th century. It contains two-light 19th-century geometric-style windows to the left and two to the right. The interior has stone floors and a four-bay roof with chamfered tie-beams and collar rafter trusses, formerly plastered.

The four-bay north arcade has three pointed arches on chamfered square piers, possibly of late 12th-century date, and an eastern arch that is 14th century with ovolo moulding. The south arcade has a similar eastern arch, with double chamfered arches to the west, probably 14th century; the north and south-west arches are smaller. The north aisle has a 19th-century roof and four two-light windows with buttresses and a plain parapet. A two-light Perpendicular window to the west also survives. The south aisle has a 15th-century roof with moulded cross beams, and 14th-century mask corbels are retained at lower level. The north aisle has a 19th-century roof. A tower arch on mask corbels now carries an organ, relocated here from the Lady Chapel in 1967.

The chancel has a continuously double chamfered arch with a doorway above to the former rood loft, reached by stone stairs from the Lady Chapel. The chancel has a 19th-century collar rafter roof, and its early 19th-century pictorial stained glass was replaced with clear glass in 1959. The chancel has cusped 19th-century lancet windows to the south and north, flanking buttresses, and an 18th-century moulded east window with clear leaded glass.

The south vestry attached to the chancel has a 19th-century door with ornamental hinges and two cusped lancets.

The Lady Chapel to the north has a 19th-century two-light east window and displays a large tablet on the north wall to the Seymour family.

The three-stage tower has a moulded plinth and diagonal buttresses. The west face features a three-light window with reticulated tracery, above which is an octagonal clock face. The bell stage has a string course and two-light Perpendicular windows with louvres. The parapet is plain with corner gargoyles. A polygonal stair turret to the north east has a Tudor-arched doorway and a parapet with open quatrefoils.

The interior of the nave retains fine 17th-century pews throughout, with shell-head bench ends and strapwork friezes. There is a polygonal pulpit and reading desk of matching character, similar to those in the Church of Michael, Mere. A square 12th-century Purbeck marble font bowl sits on a central pier with four smaller shafts at the corners, accompanied by a good 17th-century cover. A carved wooden Royal Arms hangs over the south door.

The stained glass in the north aisle is by Whall, commemorating the Fifteenth Duke of Somerset, died 1923.

A fine large monument in the south aisle commemorates Sir Edward Seymour, died 1707, erected in 1728 by Rysbrack. It features a white marble reclining figure in front of a tablet with a pediment bearing cherubs and a scrolled pediment with arms above.

Prayer boards are positioned at the west end of the north aisle.

The church has six bells, dating from 1613 to 1895, with the earlier ones recast in 1895.