Church of All Saints, Slingsby

Church of All Saints, Slingsby

This is a parish church built in 1867–1869 by R J Johnson in the English Perpendicular style, incorporating medieval fabric from an earlier structure. The medieval stone is calcareous sandstone, including carved grave-slab fragments, while the 19th-century work uses sandstone, possibly from Whitby.

The building comprises a west tower, a three-bay aisled nave with a south porch, a two-bay chancel flanked to the south by a single-bay chapel and to the north by an organ chamber and vestry.

The tower rises in three unequal stages, marked by string courses and supported by diagonal, stepped buttresses; the northern buttress incorporates a stair turret. The lowest stage contains a large pointed-arch west window with elongated reticulated tracery. The short second stage has a clock on its south elevation and a small trefoil-headed window to the west. The taller upper stage features 2-light square-headed belfry windows on each face. The roof has panelled battlements and angle finials, with projecting animal sculptures at the base of the parapet on each corner, alongside two medieval gargoyles on the north side.

The north and south elevations have stepped buttresses and 2-light square-headed windows serving both the nave clerestory and aisles. Low-pitched roofs are concealed behind plain parapets. The chancel has a 2-light south window similar in design to the tower's west window. The south door is pointed and sheltered by an embattled porch featuring an elaborate niche above the entrance, which retains a weathered statuette carved from oolitic limestone.

The east end displays prominent angle buttresses and a boldly moulded plinth. The 5-light chancel window echoes the design of the west window but incorporates carved panels at the base of the lights. Above it stands another elaborate niche also retaining a statuette. The side chapel has a small east window in vesica form. The organ chamber is lit by a 2-light window.

Internally, the walls are faced in stone ashlar. Floors are tiled with timber laid beneath the pews; encaustic tiling covers the chancel, increasing in richness towards the east end. The north arcade of the nave incorporates two 13th-century arches with their original piers, plus a 13th-century stiff-leaf corbel reset at the west end. The nave arcades are asymmetric, subtly revealing stages in the building's development. The chancel is elaborately finished with marble shafts and carved capitals to the arches and an alabaster dado to the east wall. The reredos is formed by the carved and painted panels at the base of the east window, decorated with shields bearing the Instruments of the Passion. The chancel and west windows contain stained glass by Clayton and Bell, with additional stained glass in the vesica window and three aisle windows.

A mid-13th-century knight effigy stands in a recess in the side chapel. The figure has hands in prayer and crossed legs, though the lower portion is missing; it is believed to represent a member of the Wyvill family.

The church retains extensive fittings, including oak choir stalls, pulpit and other furnishings. The altar rail incorporates elaborate ironwork. A carved oak screen dated 1928 spans the tower arch. A 17th-century bobbin-ended oak bench survives; other pews, forming a complete set, are 19th-century oak. A large brass chandelier in the nave is thought to have come from Sledmere church and to have been designed by either Street or Pearson. The tower contains a clock of 1838 by James Harrison of Hull and a set of three bells dated 1803, hung on early bell frames.