Listing Text

TL 9879-9979 HOPTON HIGH STREET (east side)

3/40 Church of All Saints
14.7.55

GV I

Parish church. Late C13, C14 and later; interior restored 1879. Nave,
chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, west tower. In rubble flint,
some knapped, with freestone dressings; red brick to clerestory; slate roofs.
North aisle with squat diagonal buttresses and C19 restored window tracery;
crenellated parapet; a 4-light east window with depressed flowing tracery with
mouchettes; pointed north door with a simple continuous curve. South aisle of
same date, late C13, with similar buttresses, crenellations, and restored
windows; a 2-light east window with trefoil heads to lights. Battlemented
clerestory to nave in Tudor brick, with 7 2-light windows with intersecting
tracery, trefoil-headed lights, and hood-moulds. A small square recess
between each pair of windows. Porch extensively restored in C19. Chancel
with diagonal buttresses to east end; 3-light east window of c.1300: 3 stepped
lancets under one arch; 2 2-light windows to north and south sides of chancel,
with trefoil heads to lights set in rectangular surrounds. Low-side windows
below both the south windows, now glazed, but rebated for shutters inside and
out. Narrow C14 tower; with diagonal buttresses at the west end, stepped in 3
stages, faced in black knapped flint and freestone, and gabled. Stair turret
with a conical roof on the south face. On the west face, a 2-light window
with a series of holes in the stone surround for some kind of lattice infill;
an empty niche with trefoil head above, and above that a small trefoil-headed
window. The top stage of the tower is an early C19 addition faced in a
chequerwork of black knapped flint and freestone blocks; crenellated parapet
with Grecian urns at the angles; a wide single-light window with rounded head
to each face. The interior of the nave has a C14 arcade in 4 bays to each
aisle: octagonal piers with their moulded bases raised on high, square blocks
of brickwork; double-chamfered arches. Fine C15 hammer-beam roof, integrated
with the clerestory; between each pair of clerestory windows is a raised
pilaster with a canopied capital on which rests a carved and painted figure
supporting the arched brace of a hammer beam; the hammer-beams themselves are
carved and painted recumbent figures of kings and musicians with ermine
collars, holding musical instruments, books, etc. A deep cornice in 2 tiers
with carving, colouring and brattishing. The easternmost bay has additional
decoration as a canopy of honour. The roof-pitch is shallow, and arched
braces to the collars, which are set very high, spring from the tops of the
hammer-beams. The seating, font and pulpit are all Victorian. Behind the
pulpit, the stairs to the rood-loft, the upper part open; the cut-off ends of
both the rood-beam and the candle-beam can be seen in the walls and in the
sides of the chancel-arch, which is high and plain. Sharply-pointed arch to
the base of the tower, used as a ringing-chamber: 6 bells. Both aisles have
roofs with plain joists and moulded main cross-beams supported by arched
braces resting on capitals in the walls; carved bosses at the intersection of
the main timbers. Fine medieval door to the tower stairs at the back of the
south aisle, with original interlaced ironwork and hinge; a Jacobean altar-
table at the east end; a piscina with trefoil head to niche, and a memorial
east window with stained glass by Kempe, 1905. Chancel C19 restored.
Memorial stained glass of 1890 in the east window: piscina with trefoil-headed
niche as in south aisle; rafter roof with additional scissor-bracing. On the
north wall, a marble monument to Thomas Raymond (d.1680), surmounted by a
broken pediment, with a coat of arms in high relief in the centre: he was the
first keeper of state papers to Charles II.

Listing NGR: TL9938779039