Parish Church of All Saints

Parish Church of All Saints

The church is of uniform fifteenth-century build and design, retaining some earlier features. It is constructed of Cefn Sandstone with a slate roof. The plan is rectangular with a west tower and north and south porches, an unbroken aisled nave and chancel. The windows are generally Perpendicular in style, with seven tall four-light windows with traceried heads on each side, a seven-light east window flanked by smaller windows to chapels, the north chapel window being more elaborate than the others. A curvilinear fourteenth-century window is present in the west end of the south aisle. The clerestory windows have four cusped lights, except those in the easternmost bay which have three lights. The parapets are embattled, and the aisles have string courses decorated with flowers, masks and animals. The tower has a fourteenth-century base, divided from the later work by a band of quatrefoils. Paired traceried bell-openings have crocketed ogee headmoulds, and a panelled parapet features crocketed pinnacles alternating with statues.

The interior lacks structural division between nave and aisles, with continuous arcades of seven bays, the easternmost bays in the aisles being devoted to chapels. An uninterrupted camberbeam roof of fine quality is panelled and decorated with fluttering angels; the aisles have simpler roofs. At the east end the arcades stop short of the easternmost bay, from which point they continue as solid walls pierced on each side by arched openings. Doorways above these formerly led to a gallery over a reredos. A vestry is situated beneath a boarded floor, and a vaulted crypt runs beneath the chancel. The present sanctuary is largely the work of Caroe. The north chapel has a canopied niche set in the east wall, supported by a grotesque head; the south chapel contains a cusped ogee piscina with a crocketed gable in the south wall.

Medieval furnishings include a chancel screen attributed to the Ludlow workshop and parclose screens and north and south chapel screens of similar, though somewhat simpler design. A set of fourteen stalls features eleven misericords with traditional carved designs. The font is octagonal with a traceried stem and carved panels. Later furnishings include two fine eighteenth-century chandeliers, a pulpit by Street of 1865, an organ by Hill & Son of 1912, and a reredos by John Douglas of 1879.

The church contains medieval stained glass of around 1500. The north chapel east window, dated 1498, displays scenes from the lives of Saint Anne and the Virgin, while the north window shows scenes from the life of the Virgin. The south chapel east window depicts Saint Apollonia, Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist and others. Later work includes windows by Lobin of Tours, Clayton & Bell, Heaton, Butler & Bayne and Kempe, some incorporating medieval glass in the tracery.

A number of sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth-century monuments are present, some of high quality. The most notable are late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Trevor memorials in the south chapel. Later monuments include works by Chantrey, Westmacott, Alexander Wilson Edwards of Wrexham, and a life-size female figure by Theed of 1851.

The church has group value with enclosed graves in the graveyard, the graveyard wall and gatepiers, with Achill, Church House and Strode House, and with All Saints School and Schoolhouse.