Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526658

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)