Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

Parish church of the 13th and 14th centuries, extensively rebuilt in 1862 by Reverend W.H. Lowder, possibly with the assistance of G.F. Bodley. The building is constructed in ashlar and coursed rubble limestone with a stone slate roof.

The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, a west tower, a chancel with a north vestry, and an octagonal broach spire. The 19th-century restored moulded pointed south doorway features Purbeck marble shafts and delicate foliage capitals. The south porch is a parapet gabled structure with an Early English style arch and short shafts with foliage terminals. The aisle windows display Decorated tracery and appear to be 19th-century work, possibly copying some original windows. The clerestory contains square recesses with alternating cinquefoil windows and blocked pointed openings.

A north doorway sits in a gabled projection. The 14th-century three-stage tower features bold diagonal buttresses, with the south buttress being larger and incorporating a stair turret with a pointed arched doorway. The west window is three-light with reticulated tracery, set within the same recess as a moulded pointed arched doorway below with quatrefoils in the spandrels. The middle stage has a two-light window, and the belfry openings are two-light with stone louvres. The octagonal broach spire has small lucarnes to the cardinal faces at its base and forms a prominent landmark in the surrounding flat uplands.

The chancel is mostly early 14th-century, featuring a three-light Decorated east window, a cinquefoil-headed north window, and a two-light south window with Decorated tracery. A large 14th-century cusped mortuary recess appears on the south side, with stone chancel gutters. The north vestry has a lean-to roof. A paved walkway surrounds the church and contains numerous late 17th and 18th-century brass memorial plates.

The interior is limewashed with ashlar dressings. The four-bay 19th-century nave arcades feature octagonal piers to the north. The nave roof is also 19th-century with cusped windbracing. Various corbel heads from the original roof have been reset in the north aisle. A tall pointed tower arch frames a pointed doorway set high above, with the lower part of the doors featuring two quatrefoil openings. The wide 19th-century chancel arch has carved angels playing musical instruments forming terminals of the hoodmould, with an incised painted decorative band above. A fragment of the rood loft stair survives, passing through the wall adjoining the south of the chancel arch.

The chancel floor is 19th-century tiled. The chancel roof is four-bay with painted panelling and arched braced trusses supported on finely carved corbels. Rere-arches extend to all chancel windows; the east rere-arch has Early English shafts and head terminals, while the south window's rere-arch features cinquefoil cusping with a sedile below. The reredos has incised decoration with a central cinquefoil and four trefoil-headed side panels, with triple Purbeck marble shafts. A double piscina in the south chancel wall appears to be 19th-century, reusing a two-light traceried window as an elaboration.

An octagonal stone pulpit with painted decoration, marble columns, and deeply undercut capitals, possibly by G.F. Bodley, stands in the church. A Norman stone font bowl with rich basket and cable-moulded ornament incorporating fleurs-de-lys sits on a Norman-style 19th-century base, also featuring convincingly unsophisticated carving. Beneath one bay of the south arcade is a 13th-century knight's effigy on a reconstructed chest base, moved from an external mortuary recess. Many medieval coffin lids are set into the north aisle wall. The tower contains many carvings from the original nave roof, and various other medieval fragments are scattered throughout the church, mostly resulting from the 19th-century restoration.

A stone tablet with fluted pilasters and pulvinated frieze is set very high on the wall. The east window features good stained glass by Clayton and Bell. The Royal Arms of George III are displayed above the tower arch.