Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

A parish church built in 1862 by George Frederick Bodley for S.S. Marling, located at King's Stanley, Selsley West. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with a stone slate roof and lead covering to the tower roof. It represents High Victorian French Gothic Revival architecture and occupies a dominant position on a promontory.

The church comprises a nave with north-west tower, north aisle, and an apsed chancel with north organ loft. The west end features a moulded pointed-arched doorway set within a parapet gable, with the parapet linking to the tower on its left. Two 2-light pointed windows with plate tracery are positioned above, with a circular window featuring bold plate tracery and a central cusped light higher still. The north nave wall is irregularly arranged with a large gabled buttress containing lancet recesses. The nave has three 3-light windows and the chancel one 2-light window, all with geometric tracery.

A significant feature is a large 14th-century-style mortuary recess with a railed enclosure serving as a monument to Sir Samuel Stephens Marling (died 1883). Within a round-arched and cusped recess is a small triangular-headed panel depicting scenes from the Life of Christ. The plinth to the nave becomes battered at its east end. The five-sided apse has lancet windows and circular lights on each facet, all set within round-arched recesses.

The north aisle has a lean-to roof with two 2-light pointed windows. To the east, a two-storey vestry and organ loft features parapet gables on its east and west faces that disappear into the nave roof to the south. A gable-mounted chimney with triangular hood sits at the west end. A high pointed-arched doorway to the organ loft is approached by a straight flight of stone steps projecting beyond the north aisle wall, with a half-arch spanning the vestry entrance below. A circular window with dogtooth border sits high in the gable apex. The organ loft and vestry have plate-traceried windows on their north sides.

The saddleback tower has three stages. A large moulded and pointed-arched north doorway is positioned above by two 2-light plate-traceried windows with sandstone colonnettes and crocket capitals. Tall 2-light belfry openings to east and west have central double sandstone shafts with trefoil-headed openings and a circular window with plate tracery above. Alternating coloured voussoir stone in the pointed arch corresponds with banding in the gables. The north and south sides each have a row of three trefoil and quatrefoil openings set within square recesses. An iron cross with weathervane crowns the tower roof ridge.

The interior features ashlar-faced walls. The high nave has a crown post roof. A two-bay north arcade has simply moulded pointed arches carried on a large central marble pier with crocket capital. A pointed-arched tower doorway leads to an octagonal stair turret within the tower, which has 2-light openings in its lower stage each with a central sandstone shaft. Sandstone treads form a spiral stair brought through to the external face of the turret.

The tall lancet chancel arch has simple roll mouldings on its intrados, supported on paired marble column shafts with mid-height stone rings and crocket capitals. The chancel has a boarded tunnel-vaulted roof and a stepped tiled floor. An elaborate carved string course runs through the apse with a gothic-lettered inscription below. Choir stalls feature poppy-head and fleur-de-lys finials. A round-fronted marble pulpit incorporates inlay of various coloured stones. An octagonal stone font has a circular base with attached shafts. Matching Marling family memorial tablets are arranged in a row on the south nave wall. A later timber-panelled north chapel has delicately carved tracery. A 20th-century draught lobby at the west end contains good linenfold panelling.

The stained glass by Morris and Company represents an important early ecclesiastical commission set, part of a group of their first church works all designed by Bodley, the others being St Michael's Church at Brighton and St Martin's Church at Scarborough. The artists involved at Selsley included Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Madox Brown, Webb (who provided the general scheme and designed all the animals), and Morris himself. The west window is particularly notable, its subject being The Creation, with markedly avant-garde designs including an almost abstract depiction of rain and sea.

It is said that Marling directed the church to be a copy of the church at Marling (now Marlengo) in the Tyrol. A watercolour of that church is displayed at Selsley. Also on view is a copy of Bodley's original design, which shows the tower positioned towards the east end. This is one of Bodley's most important early works and of great significance to the development of High Victorian architecture.