Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is an Anglican parish church dating back to the 15th century. A north aisle was added in 1579, and the church was restored in 1863. It is constructed of squared and coursed slatestone with a gabled, slate roof. The church’s plan includes a chancel, a nave with a north aisle, and a west tower.

The church exhibits Perpendicular-style fenestration added during the 1863 restoration, particularly to the chancel and the south wall of the nave. The chancel’s east window is a 3-light design, with 2-light square-headed windows flanking the south door, also dating from 1863. The south wall of the nave has two 2- and 3-light windows, alongside a porch built in 1863. This porch’s round-arched doorway leads to a Norman-style round-arched doorway on the south side, with chamfered imposts, also part of the 1863 restoration. The 1579 north aisle features three 3-light Perpendicular windows, each with trefoiled and ogee-headed lights and Mouchettes to the spandrels, finished with quatrefoil heads.

The west tower is a three-stage structure from the 15th century, featuring a 3-light Perpendicular window above a 3-centred arched, moulded west doorway with a mid-19th century door. There are single-light cinquefoiled windows, a projecting stair turret to the south with slit lights, and a crenellated parapet with crocketed pinnacles.

Inside, the chancel has a Decorated-style reredos with The Ten Commandments displayed within crocketed and cinquefoiled canopies. A waggon roof with blue-painted panels and gilt detailing completes the chancel, and the chancel arch features a moulded inner order set on corbelled angels holding shields. The nave’s arcade has chamfered granite pillars with cushion capitals, supporting a heavy timber arcade plate and an arch-braced roof. The south aisle contains a late 13th-century pointed-arched doorway leading to a vestry, along with a waggon roof featuring moulded ribs and carved bosses, originally constructed in 1579 for Richard Beller. The west tower contains medieval inlaid floor tiles and a pointed-arched doorway with convex moulding to the stair turret. The porch also has medieval inlaid floor tiles and a late 16th-century arch-braced roof with bosses carved on the collar purlin.

Other fittings include vine-leaf decoration to a mid-19th century base, a late 12th-century cushion-type font with relief-carved rosettes on the sides and fleur-de-lys to the soffits, with a mid-19th century base and covers, and mid-19th century choir stalls, a communion rail, and pews. In the south aisle, a Baroque wall monument commemorates Gilbert Hody (d. 1705), featuring a heraldic cartouche within a broken scrolled pediment, with angels above an oval cartouche framed by Tuscan columns. A particularly fine life-size effigy of Thomas Welshe (d. 1639) is displayed on a tomb chest, with detailed “Van Dyke” dress and a depiction of him holding a prayer book.