Church Of All Saints

Church of All Saints

This Anglican parish church on Church Street in Castle Cary has Saxon origins, with the main structure dating from around 1470. The building was heavily restored by Benjamin Ferrey between 1851 and 1855. The church is constructed from Cary stone (cut and squared) for the tower, with lias stone (cut and squared) for the remainder and Doulting stone for dressings. The roofs are Welsh slate and sheet lead behind battlemented parapets.

The church follows a six-cell plan comprising a three-bay chancel, five-bay nave, north and south aisles, and north and south transepts. Additional features include a north-east corner vestry, north and south porches, and a west tower with spire.

The chancel displays a double plinth with angled corner and bay buttresses. The east window is a 4-light 19th-century version of 15th-century tracery beneath an arched label with headstops. To the south stands a 3-light 15th-century traceried window set in a hollowed pointed-arch recess without label, and to the north a similar window (partly obscured by the vestry) with a plain parapet. The north wall contains a 3-light traceried flat-arched window with a moulded arched doorway to the west, both without labels.

The nave is visible through its clerestorey with 3-light 15th-century traceried windows in 4-centre arched hollowed recesses without labels. The north transept and north aisle are 19th-century in character, with bay buttresses and angled corner buttresses to the transept. The 3-light windows in the north walls are 19th-century versions of the nave windows, while the west wall contains a 2-light matching window. The north porch is entirely 19th-century work, featuring a simple 15th-century style outer arch with an empty canopied statue niche above and a pointed moulded inner arch. The inner doorway in the south-east corner leads to an octagonal stair turret ascending to the parvise.

The south aisle and transept match the north side, though the aisle incorporates older work. The south porch is constructed of ashlar in two storeys with corner buttresses topped by gargoyles and a battlemented parapet. It has a 15th-century style outer arch and moulded pointed inner arch with a possibly 15th-century door. The first floor is reached by a north-east octagonal stair turret and contains two small 14th-century style traceried windows without labels flanking a canopied statue niche, which holds a medieval wooden figure.

The tower rises in three stages with a low base. It features offset corner buttresses ending in crocketted pinnacles, a double plinth, string courses, and open-traceried battlemented parapets with gargoyles beneath. The tall spire has a carved middle band and weathervane finial, with crocketted and pinnacled gablets at the bases of the principal faces to small windows. The south-east corner contains an octagonal stair turret with a stepped stone roof rising two stages: the bottom stage is plain, while the second stage has a 4-light 19th-century traceried west window in 15th-century style with a pointed arched label, with a thin lancet window above. The north and south faces of this stage have single-light cusped rectangular windows. The third stage features 2-light 15th-century style traceried windows with diagonal traceried stone baffles beneath stilted arched labels that extend as an additional string course, and clock faces to the north and south.

Inside, the chancel is mostly 19th and 20th-century work with a double arch-truss traceried roof frame and a traceried reredos. An ogee arched doorway leads to the vestry. The arches to the transepts and nave are 15th-century in style, though probably recut. The nave has a 15th-century arcade with four-shaft and hollow columns, but the roof is 19th-century traceried king-post work. The aisles feature moulded rib-and-panel ceilings, likely all 19th-century work. The tower arch is very tall and plain with double chamfering, with corbel offsets supporting a tracery-panelled timber roof.

The church contains a 15th-century style timber pulpit, almost entirely 19th-century though possibly incorporating original fragments. The 15th-century octagonal font displays double quatrefoil panels on each face of the bowl, foliage-carved coving, and a traceried panelled shaft. Several 17th-century Keinton stone slab memorials with fine incised work are set into the nave floor, and four 18th-century marble plaque memorials are positioned in the tower. The east window contains stained glass by O'Connor (1855), and the west window features work by Powell and Sons (1864).

The first recorded rector dates to 1269.