Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 13 September 2023 to correct a typo in the description
SO8454NE
620-1/16/137
WORCESTER
DEANSWAY
Church of All Saints
(Formerly listed as Church of All Saints, BROAD STREET)
22/5/54
GV
II*
Formerly known as: Church of All Saints and All Hallows BROAD STREET. Parish church. C15 first stage of tower, with earlier, probably C12 origins and probably incorporating part of the City Walls, rebuilt 1739-42 by Thomas White, alterations by Aston Webb of 1889, tower restored 1913, further restorations c1990-95.
MATERIALS: Cotswold stone ashlar with sandstone rubble wall tosouth-west, concealed roof.
PLAN: three stage west tower, six bay aisled nave and shallow chancel.
EXTERIOR: tower: first stage has angle buttresses with off sets, entrance on north side has pointed plank door with hollow moulding to head and in square headed recess, four-light west window with Perpendicular tracery to head, moulded first stage band, second stage has clasping paired pilasters with horizontal rustication, round arched windows to three sides in tooled surrounds with imposts, keystones and shaped sills, moulded cornice over second stage, third stage has two belfry openings to each side with round arched imposts with keystones and sills, crowning moulded entablature with low parapet and four renewed urns with gadrooned bases. Nave: main facade to north, chamfered plinth, end pilasters with horizontal rustication, crowning cornice and low parapet. Entrance in second bay from west: double eight-raised-and-fielded-panel doors with blind, panelled fanlight over, in tooled surround with impost and angel keystone in architrave with fluted Doric pilasters, frieze with triglyphs and metopes and segmental pediment. Five round-arched windows with tooled surrounds, imposts and keystones, with moulded sills on plain corbels. To west end of nave a similar round-arched window; at either side of tower are curvilinear gable ends. South side has four windows, the westernmost bay is blind, to second bay from west an eight-raised-and-fielded-panel door with blind panelled fanlight in tooled surround. Otherwise windows as north side. East end, described by Pevsner as 'the real facade' with the most impressive architectural treatment: to ends of chancel are paired fluted giant Doric pilasters on continuous moulded plinth; central large, round-arched window with architrave with panelled pilasters and cherub-head to keystone, triglyphs and metopes over pilasters, continuous cornice and pediment with bust of Bishop Bough. To east end of south aisle: blank round-arched opening in tooled surrounds and oculus over; to east end of north aisle: double eight-raised-and-fielded-panel doors with blind, panelled fanlight over, in tooled surround with impost and keystone in tooled surround, oculus over.
INTERIOR: pointed, tower arch with two orders of hollow moulding and one order of roll-moulding. Six raised-and-fielded-panel door to vestry. North entrance porch has eight raised and fielded panel double doors with panel over between pilasters and with cornice. Nave has arcade of Doric columns on tall plinths which retain C18 raised and fielded panelling; half-columnar responds; C18 raised and fielded panelling to dado approximately 1.75 metres high. Flat-ceiled aisles and segmental vault to nave with panelled 'ribs' from columns, to chancel end the vault has more elaborate panels with decorative arcades on fluted Corinthian columns with bands of foliate decoration.
FITTINGS: reredos: tripartite, with Corinthian pilasters and segmental pediment, painting by Josiah Rushton of the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works, 1867. Pulpit incorporates C17 panels of four evangelists. Screen between chancel and chancel aisles by Aston Webb. Communion rail has fluted Doric columnar balusters and shaped handrail. Stained glass: C15 fragments in west window, and in windows to east and west ends of aisles. East window in Pre-Raphaelite style; east wall painted in Pre-Raphaelite style, presumably in 1889. Norman font in continuous use until 1878; late-C19 font.
MONUMENTS: Edward Hurdman d1621 and wife: two large figures kneeling by a prayer desk (context destroyed); painted wall monument to Samuel Matthews, Alderman d1684 with demi-figure and barley-twist columns with broken segmental pediment. Wall tablet to Margery Symonds d1683. Good group of architectural type C18 wall tablets mainly by Richard Squire of Worcester, commemoration plaque c1762 by Squire with medallion portrait of Queen Anne. Greek Revival wall tablets by Preece of Worcester.
HISTORICAL NOTE: there is documentary evidence for earlier fabric: when the tower was restored in 1913, traces of Norman work are said to have been found. The earliest documentary reference to the church is in 1125. The westernmost bay on the south side was originally occupied by a school room.
One of an important group of four churches in Worcester which, in their present form, are largely eighteenth century, with Church of St Martin, Cornmarket; Former Church of St Nicholas, The Cross; and Church of St Swithin, Church Street (qqv). Their towers, together with the Cathedral (qv) and St Andrew's Church Tower, Deansway (qv), form the most significant feature of Worcester's skyline.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 295, 317; Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society: Baker N: 'The Urban Churches of Worcester, A Survey': Worcester: 1980-: 114-124).
