Reasons for Designation
All Saints' Church has been designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* The contrasting good quality stone work affords the building special exterior architectural quality
* It survives largely unaltered and retains its original historic character and features throughout including tiled and mosaic floors, reredos, font and pews
* Although All Saints' has a plain interior, the furnishings are of good design; the pulpit in particular is a fine piece and adds interest
* It represents the work of a nationally renowned church architect of the mid- to late-C19
Details
ASHWICK
381/0/10021 BATH ROAD, OAKHILL
10-OCT-08 Oakhill
(East side)
CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS
II
Anglican church. 1860-63 and designed by the architect John Loughborough Pearson.
MATERIALS: It is built of grey limestone rubble, banded and dressed with Bath stone ashlar. The pitched roofs have slate coverings.
PLAN: The church is oriented north east-south west and has a simple two-cell plan comprising an aisleless nave and a chancel, with a small porch to the south and vestry to the north.
EXTERIOR: The building is Early English in style, with paired lancet windows in the nave and single lancets in the chancel. The west and east windows are of two and three larger lancets respectively. The church is adorned by a single bellcote to the west front. There is a single buttress to both the north east and south west elevations of the nave. The mouldings to the porch are of two chamfered orders and a hood-mould above, and those to the pointed arch entrance have mouldings decorated with rosettes and pairs of chevrons. There are decorative strap hinges to the timber doors.
INTERIOR: The walls are smoothly rendered and whitewashed, and the windows set in deep splayed reveals. The chancel arch has mouldings of two chamfered orders, the inner supported on engaged columns with bell-shaped capitals, and a hood-mould above. A photograph, probably early C20 in date, shows that the chancel arch and the surrounding wall previously had a highly decorative paint scheme which has been painted over. The aisleless nave has a floor of red and black tiles; the chancel is floored with coloured, patterned mosaic. There is a reredos of seven Gothic arches filled with patterned tiles, and an octagonal stone font. The drum-shaped stone pulpit has delicately carved and painted rosette panels and is a particularly fine piece. Other furnishings include pine pews with shaped ends and moulded top rails, choir stalls of similar design with pierced backs, and an organ with decorative pipework. There is an open-truss roof to the nave, and a wagon ceiling in the chancel.
HISTORY: Oakhill owes much of its development to the Oakhill Brewery which was established in the village in the late C18. In 1860 an initial design for an Anglican church was obtained from the local firm of Wainwright and Heard, but this was criticised by the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS) and was never built. Instead the prominent church architect John Loughborough Pearson was asked to submit a design, which was duly accepted. Pearson (1817-1897) was a prolific architect responsible for over 250 major works. He worked first as an assistant to Anthony Salvin, and then Philip Hardwick, before establishing his own practice in 1843. Pearson's reputation grew, and he became one of the more successful establishment figures, being elected Fellow Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860 and Royal Academician in 1880. He was architect to several of the great cathedrals - Lincoln, Rochester, Bristol, and Peterborough. His masterpiece is arguably Truro Cathedral in Cornwall (Grade I), which was commenced in 1880.
All Saints' Church was built in 1860-63; the only change to Pearson's design was, at the stipulation of the ICBS, the addition of a buttress on the north side of the nave.
REASON FOR DECISION: All Saints' Church is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* The contrasting good quality stone work affords the building special exterior architectural quality
* It survives largely unaltered and retains its original historic character and features throughout including tiled and mosaic floors, reredos, font and pews
* Although All Saints' has a plain interior, the furnishings are of good design; the pulpit in particular is a fine piece and adds interest
* It represents the work of a nationally renowned church architect of the mid- to late-C19
SOURCES: Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England. North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 240
Paul Waterhouse, 'Pearson, John Loughborough (1817-1897)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
RIBA, Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 (Continuum, 2001), Vol. 1, 372-3.
