Description

LANGTON LONG BLANDFORD

1647/2/3 CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS
02-SEP-86

II
An Anglican rural parish church, built in 1861 to a design by Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-1880).

MATERIALS
The church is built in flint with ashlar bonding courses combined with flint with ashlar blocks, and has slate roofs with gable stone copings.

PLAN
Its plan consists of a nave with chancel and north aisle, north and south transepts, a west tower and south porch.

EXTERIOR
The three-stage west tower, with diagonal buttresses to the first two stages and an octagonal ashlar north side, has weathered strings, an embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles and string gargoyles. To the west it has a two-light pointed Perpendicular style window. The belfry has on all sides, square headed, two-light Perpendicular style windows with returned labels. The main body of the church has two- and three-light Perpendicular tracery windows with square and pointed heads.

INTERIOR
The interior includes a two-bay, pointed, moulded arcade resting on octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases. The pointed and moulded transept arches have moulded caps. The chancel has a panelled wagon roof, and the chancel arch is moulded and pointed and has continuous jambs. The nave has a quasi-hammer beam roof with arch-braced collars springing from carved corbels. The transepts have arch-braced collar beam roofs. It contains many original C19 features, such as the pews and stained glass, an open traceried pulpit on a stone base and an octagonal stone font with carved panelled sides, set on a cylindrical pier with four marble sub-shafts. Apart from a number of C18, C19 and C20 monuments, some reset and some original, it contains a reset brass memorial plaque of 1457 to John Whitewood and his first and second wives Joanna and Alicia, inscribed with black letters.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
It is separated from the main road to the north by a dwarf stone and flint wall topped with spearheaded railings. Entrance gates at its north-east corner are hung between square stone and flint piers with pyramidal caps. Set in the dwarf wall are several late C19 and C20 monuments (small plaques in stone and marble).

HISTORY
All Saints Church was paid for by the Farquharsons, a local family. It has been suggested that the church was built on the site of a former parish church of uncertain date and that the brass memorial of 1457 to John Whitewood situated in the current church, may be of this former parish church, however there is no firm evidence to support this. TH Wyatt is a well known Victorian architect who designed over 400 buildings, including more than 150 churches, many of which are listed. One of his most appreciated churches is the grade I listed St Mary and St Nicholas Church in Wilton (qv) for the Earls of Pembroke (1840-45), in Lombardic style. During the 1860s and 1870s Wyatt was most prolific, and designed many estate and parish churches in England, mostly in a Gothic Revival style.

SOURCES
N Pevsner and J Newman, 'The Buildings of England: Dorset' (1972), p 250.
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England: Inventory of Dorset (1972), vol.4 p44.
Dorset Life (1987), pp 82-85.
Oxford DNB entry for Wyatt, Thomas Henry (1807-1880), by P Waterhouse & rev. J M Robinson.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
All Saints Church is designated on a national level at grade II for the following
principal reasons:

* It is an illustrative example of TH Wyatt's later church designs.

* It displays good quality architectural detailing, design and craftmanship.

* As a late Victorian decorative ensemble, both the exterior and interior display a high level of completeness.

NGR: ST8987505916

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26411952

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.

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