Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

A late 19th-century church built in brown rock-faced snecked rubble with Bath stone dressings, green slate roofs, and terracotta ridges. The building comprises a nave with aisles, transepts, chancel, and an incomplete south-east tower over the organ-chamber, with north-east vestries. The site slopes steeply, with the west end raised over extensive crypt beneath.

The five-bay nave is clerestoried with coped gables and contains four small pairs of clerestory lights. Lean-to aisles have three-light plate-tracery windows. The transepts project with coped gables in the fifth bay. A gabled porch sits in the first bay of the south aisle, accessed by six steps to a shafted pointed entry with a continuously moulded inner door frame, ledged doors, and fine wrought iron hinges. The aisles feature sill courses and low buttresses, with two-light end windows containing quatrefoils above. The west end has two long pointed three-light windows and three big buttresses, topped with a gable roundel. Basement openings comprise a pair of four-light windows to the nave and a door to the north aisle.

The transepts contain large plate-tracery three-light windows with pierced sexfoils above the side lights. The chancel has a coped east gable and a prominent five-light east window with stepped lancets and a stepped sill-course beneath. A north lean-to contains a battered chimney and a two-light small east window; the south side has a single lancet.

The attached tower remains incomplete, with its south front framed by buttresses—the right buttress incorporating a rounded stair tower. A pointed door opens to the ground floor, a long pointed window to the centre, and two small louvered vents near the truncated top, which carries a shallow pyramid roof. The east side displays two long lancets and a pointed relieving arch.

Interior

The interior is very finely detailed in grey stone with Bath stone dressings. The nave has severe arcades with round piers and caps, moulded pointed arches without hoodmoulds, and clerestory with pointed rear arches. Big roof trusses feature moulded tie-beams on short arched braces with arched braces to collars. Stairs descend north-west to the crypt. Beneath the nave's central aisle is a tiled font for total immersion. A wall-shaft marks the end of the arcades before the taller transept arches. The transepts have scissor-rafter roofs; the south transept contains a large pointed east arch into the organ-chamber in the tower base, while the north transept has a smaller moulded arch to the Lady Chapel. Both transepts have west arches into the aisles.

The chancel arch is corbelled with a low ashlar chancel screen wall, panelled with wrought iron gates. The chancel itself is in grey lias ashlar with Bath stone dressings and is divided into two sections. The choir features a panelled boarded canted roof with two arches to the north on a single column and one large arch to the south opening to the organ-chamber. A single step rises into the encaustic-tiled east end, then another step to the sanctuary and two to the altar. Five pointed transverse stone arches, closely spaced with red brick between, span the space. A string course runs under the arch springing with another lower down. A tall south lancet illuminates the altar above paired arched piscina and paired arched sedilia, marble-shafted with hoodmoulds. The east window has detached marble shafts with shaft rings and a stepped hoodmould. To the north, a small Lady Chapel connects via its north door to a vestry with a south wall fireplace and a column-shaft serving the east window.

Stained Glass

The stained glass is of exceptional quality. The five-light east window, dated 1879, is probably by Clayton and Bell. A richly coloured south aisle window of circa 1876 features masonic emblems. The west end contains extensive and good quality glass of circa 1900, with aisle west windows of circa 1890. The north aisle has a first window of circa 1903 and a fourth window of circa 1901, signed by R J Newbury. North transept glass dates to circa 1910 and south transept glass to circa 1906. A small Lady Chapel window of 1895 is signed H Davis, London.

Fittings

The chancel contains a rich and heavily carved reredos of 1879 featuring a high-relief Crucifixion panel in stone with traceried canopies and a stiff-leaf carved border. Lower flanking panels each contain two carved relief angels in quatrefoils. On each side of the east wall is intersecting arcading with Purbeck marble shafts and embossed glazed tiles in five colours. A fine marble font of sexlobe form stands at the south end, mounted on a stone and marble base of six clustered columns with stiff-leaf caps and marble shafts, with a wrought iron cover. The timber pulpit dates to 1924. Other fittings include a brass eagle lectern, carved oak chancel stalls, a plain organ case with painted organ pipes by Hill of London.