Description

SP59NE BLABY CHURCH STREET (North
Side)

1/1 Church of All Saints

7.10.57
I
GV

Parish Church. Largely late C13 to early C14, though with several
identifiable phases of building, and a C16 clerestory and Victorian
restoration work. Random granite rubble with limestone dressing and Welsh
slate roof to clerestory and chancel, lead elsewhere. West tower with spire,
nave with south aisle and clerestory, and large chancel. Late C13 tower with
four unequal stages with angle buttresses and paired foiled bell chamber
lights. Plain parapet and recessed spire which has one set of lucarnes and
three tiers of carved heads at its angles. The principal angles are
distinguished by broach details. South doorway in Victorian porch.
Buttressed south aisle with Victorian windows in Decorated style, of 2-lights
with plain or foiled tracery and the eastern-most window in a later style with
3-lights. String course. Chancel windows also Victorian renewals of 2-lights
with quatrefoils, the tracery of the central window based on an ogee pattern.
Small blocked opening perhaps a low side window below the string course.
Ogival tracery to 4-light east window. Buttresses have trefoils beneath their
coped heads. Victorian vestry to north. North wall of nave is very tall and
although the window tracery is renewed, the pattern of fenestration remains
irregular: each window is in a different style and at varied levels.
Clerestory is a C16 addition with squared 2-light openings with hollow
chamfered architraves and mullions. Interior: C14 south arcade of five bays:
the slender octagonal shafts are raised on square chamfered bases, and the
arches are double chamfered. There are grotesque corbel heads, but no
hoodmoulds. West tower arch is rather earlier, late C13, steeply triple
chamfered arch but filled in at ground floor level and largely obscured by the
gallery of c1740. This elegant woodwork is supported on fluted columns with
triglyph frieze and fluted pilasters. As a centrepiece, there is a marquetry
panel with emblems of the sun. Doorway into tower of similar style with
fluted shafts to architrave. Victorian hammerbeam nave roof, painted. South
aisle roof is supported from large grotesque corbels which project south from
the arcade. They carry wall posts articulated with bases and abaci supporting
cambered tie beams and collar purlins. Moulded tie beams have huge central
bosses: some are heavy foliage others grotesque heads, one bearing a crown,
one a green man. All the woodwork including the wall plates is painted in
cheerful patterns of white, red, black and green with gilding. One tie is
dated 1630 with initials W.H.I.D. and Rob Biggs. East wall of aisle is blank
but has a blind recess divided into two unequal parts by a filleted shaft,
with shallow ogival moulded heads to arches with finials and corbels to
hoodmould. Triple chamfered chancel arch dies into responds without corbels.
Above it is the impress of an early roofline. Integral late C13 piscina and
sedilia to south, with clustered shafts and hollow chamfered mouldings.
Various wall memorial wall tablets including on the north wall in black marble
with gold detailing. Loseby Ashby, undated, probably late C18. The eared
tablet is surmounted by a shield and heraldic emblems and flanked by slight
foliate swags. To each side of the altar are memorial tablets apparently
erected in the C19 but to members of families who deceased in the C18. Black
marble predominates for the classical styles which commemorate Thomas Major
and Edward Stokes and their families. On the south wall is a stone in memory
of Shuckbrugh Ashby d1752 in a marble classical idiom. Stained glass largely
of 1930's to 1950's. Early font perhaps C12, plain round basin with slight
rim moulding curving from a curved base. Royal arms over south door.

Listing NGR: SP5703097857

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of All Saints at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17530564

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]