Church of All Saints

Details

SU 8485-8585
16/1

BISHAM
MARLOW ROAD (west side, off)
Church of All Saints

25.3.55

G.V.
II*

Parish church. Dates from mid C12, of which only the tower remains. Restored by Benjamin Ferrey 1849. North aisle and chancel extended eastwards 1877. Minor restorations to tower in 1903 and 1905. Part chalk, part flint with Bath stone dressings. Tile gabled roofs, separate over nave and aisles. Three-bay nave, aisled; with west tower, south porch, chancel and south chapel.

Tower: three stages divided by chamfered string courses. The bottom stage projects in front of the walls above. The west wall has a C19 doorway, and above this a small C12 round-headed window, with widely splayed inner jambs, but restored externally. There is a similar window at the same level on the north wall, but unrestored with chamfered orders. The ringing stage is lighted from the north, south and west by single C19 pointed lights. The bell chamber has original coupled round-headed lights on all four sides, with crudely carved chevron ornament, and labels formed by a string course running round the walls at the arch springing level. Above this is a brick, embattled parapet, and a pyramidal tile roof. The remaining parts of the church have a projecting plinth, moulded cill string course and two-stage buttresses. All windows are C19, except the late C16 'Hoby' window in the east wall of the south chapel.

Nave: north aisle: six bays, three buttresses, and one diagonal buttress at each end. On the left end bay a lancet, in the second bay a three-light window with flowing tracery in a pedimented projection dated 1878 with a stone cross on apex, and relieving arch near ground level, with inscription above 'Vault of the Williams Family of Temple House, Berkshire'. Three bays to the right of this have a two-light cusped, traceried window, and the end bay a two-light similar window with a C19 door and pointed arch under. Nave, south aisle: five bays, four buttresses and one diagonal buttress at each end. On left end bay a small C19 pointed arched doorway; a gabled entrance porch in the second bay. One lancet in bay to right of porch, and one two-light cusped traceried window in the next bay. A sundial at high level in the second bay from the right end. Nave and aisle and south chapel, east end: three gables, one bay each, with stone crosses at apex, the centre chancel projecting with a three-light window with reticulated tracery. A similar window on the north aisle and on the south aisle, the 'Hoby' window of six-lights with three-centred heads; above which is a C19 trefoiled window.

Interior: Nave with C19 arch braced collar roof. Four bay north and south aisles with similar roofs. Two bay, C19 arcades in the style of the C14, open into the north aisle and south chapel. Both nave arcades are three bays, the north similar to that of the chancel. Semicircular tower arch of two moulded orders. In the east wall of the south chapel is the early C17 Hoby window of six-lights with two shields in each, and an inscription showing that it was put up in 1609 in memory of Sir Philip and Sir Thomas Hoby.

Monuments: A fine C16 monument against the south wall of the chapel, erected by Dame Elizabeth Hoby, in memory of her brothers, comprising an alabaster altar tomb, built into the wall in an arched recess, with the recumbent figures of the two brothers; small Doric pilasters support an entablature and divide each end of the tomb into two bays and the front into three. On the right of this, a C16 coloured marble monument to the memory of Elizabath Lady Hoby. In the centre, under a canopy formed by an entablature supported at either end of Corinthian columns, and inclosing a semicircular arched recess, are the kneeling figures of Lady Hoby and her children; the whole stands upon a panelled plinth. In the centre of the chapel, is a marble monument to Margaret Cary, wife of Sir Edward Hoby, in three stages, the lower two forming a base from which rises an obelisk between four swans. In the north east corner of the north chancel aisle is an early C16 tomb of Purbeck marble, to the memory of Mrs. Wheatley, daughter of Mr. Thomas Williams, of Temple House, Berks. d.1850.

Listing NGR: SU8480985407

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

40794

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Berkshire, (1966), 88-89
Country Life in April, (1905), 345-346
Country Life in June, (1905), 911-914

Websites
British Geological Survey, Strategic Stone Study, accessed 04/02/2020 from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/buildingStones/StrategicStoneStudy/EH_atlases.html

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