Church Of All Hallows

The Church of All Hallows is a building with a Late 15th-century tower and the remainder rebuilt in 1876, incorporating an early 15th-century south wall of the nave. It is constructed of coursed squared stone with a slate roof. The church is composed of a three-storey west tower, a three-bay nave with a north aisle and a south porch, and a lower three-bay chancel with a north chapel and vestry. The design is in Perpendicular style and includes a roll-moulded plinth, offset buttresses (angled at the south-west corner of the tower and the south-east corner of the chancel), a cyma-moulded string below the parapets, and raised recesses with cross finials added in 1877. The south-east vice of the tower has small, chamfered windows; there is a narrow chamfered light to the second storey and a two-light belfry opening on each side. A clock face is visible on the south side, and a three-light window with a hoodmould faces west. A blocked pointed-arched opening is present on the north side; corner gargoyles adorn the embattled parapet. The porch has a moulded four-centred-arched doorway, an embattled parapet, and a moulded, pointed-arched, 19th-century inner doorway. A two-light window with a hollow-moulded, flat-headed surround is to the left, and a three-light pointed-arched window with a hoodmould is to the right. The north aisle features three two-light windows. The chancel has a central Tudor-arched priest's door with a two-light window above, and four-light windows on either side. There is a plain parapet and a reused east window with Geometric tracery beneath a 19th-century headstopped hoodmould. The north chapel has a three-light east window with mouchettes. Internally, the 15th-century stone south wall has been heightened in brick. A piscina is located at the east end and a stoup by the door. The tower contains a narrow, chamfered vice door and stepped, chamfered arches in the north and east walls. Several memorials are present, including those to members of the Harland family. Memorials include one to John, his wife and children, dating to 1730, featuring winged skulls and a coat of arms; one to Philip and his wife Elizabeth, dating to 1766, with medallions, festoons, an oval plaque, an urn, and lamps; one to Richard, dating to 1750, with a corniced, finialled aedicule and portrait medallion, and one erected to Philip, dating to 1689, with instruments of war. A late 17th-century altar table, an early 18th-century hexagonal oak pulpit with a panelled column and sounding board, and a 1673-dated alms box by the nave door are also included. Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, held the living here from 1741 to 1760.