Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

An Anglican parish church in Woodford, the Church of All Saints dates primarily to the 12th century, with significant 15th-century additions and extensive restoration undertaken in 1845 by T.H. Wyatt. The building combines flint and limestone chequerwork in its tower with 19th-century Tisbury stone ashlar for the remainder, incorporating reused 12th-century worked stone throughout. Roofs are tiled, with lead covering to the aisles.

The church comprises a nave with a south porch, short north and south aisles, a chancel with a north vestry, and a 15th-century west tower with an external stair tower on its north side. The nave is articulated by pilaster buttresses and features 2-light cusped windows beneath label hoods. The aisles have offsetting buttresses and 3-light windows, with a parapet running across. The chancel displays high-set lancets with dripmouldlings, all terminating in varied mask terminals, and a 3-light east window with 19th-century curvilinear tracery.

The tower rises in two stages with angle buttresses, 2-light bell openings, a crenellated parapet, and corner gargoyles. A west door and 3-light window occupy the lower stage. The south porch is a 19th-century addition, steeply gabled, with large terminals to its four-centred outer arch. The 12th-century inner door is enriched with nook shafts and scalloped capitals, its outer order decorated with arch lozenges and the inner with horizontal chevrons. A two-centred door is set within, and a mass dial appears at high level.

Interior

The nave is plastered and flagged, with a 19th-century roof of four bays featuring arch-braced collars on hammer beams and shaped wind braces to single purlins. Two-bay arcades flank the nave to each short aisle. The south arcade is 15th century, with hollow-sided octagonal columns, capitals and imposts (one displaying a trefoiled niche), while the north arcade reproduces this design in 19th-century work. The chancel arch is a robust composition with stiff-leaf capitals bearing a dog-tooth band on double shafts. The tower arch, 15th century, features an inner shaft and outer hollow chamfer, with an arch of two hollow-chamfered orders. The chancel itself is 19th-century work of two bays with a similar roof treatment. A 15th-century piscina occupies the south side.

Fittings include a 15th-century octagonal font with quatrefoiled panels on a tapered base; a 19th-century oak pulpit with stone approach steps and low balustrade; and 19th-century pews, choir stalls, and communion rail. A late 16th to early 17th-century tower screen features a round-arched arcade with carved spandrels, wider at its centre with a pair of doors, brackets and plaster coving supporting a canted panelled gallery above.

Monuments and Memorials

The chancel north side bears a Gothic limestone monument by Osmund to William Bowles of Heale House, died 1826. On the south side are a long sarcophagus tablet of grey and white marble to Canon William Bowles (died 1788) and his wife, damaged; and a tablet of grey and white marbles with arms in monstrance, cornice, and shaped apron, to Rev John Wyndham, died 1816.

In the nave north side stands a white marble tablet on grey by Osmund—a gabled corniced tablet to William Lawer (died 1813), his wife, and son. The north aisle contains a small moulded marble tablet by Croomes to Mrs Hannah Biggs, a domestic (died 1812), and two terrazzo monuments of 20th-century date. The south aisle displays two limestone wall monuments: one with a brass panel bearing strapwork surround, cornice carrying arms, and plinth below, to Gerrard Errington of Heale, died 1596, with some painting; and an elegant wall monument in Carrara marble with oak leaves and scrolls flanking the panel, carved frieze, cornice and shaped gable flanked by lamps, a putto on the apron and acanthus brackets, to Edward Polhill (died 1759) and his sister (died 1782).

Brasses include a plain example of 1809 to Philip Self in the south aisle, and 20th-century brasses in the north aisle. A small painted royal arms of George III is also present.

Furniture comprises a 17th-century chest of five carved panes and two late 17th to early 18th-century half-octagonal tables with arches between turned legs.