Church Of All Saints, Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, SN15 (Grade II*)

SUTTON BENGER HIGH STREET ST 9478 (north side)

12/272 Church of All Saints

20.12.60

GV II*

Anglican parish church, C12 origins, C14 and C15, heavily restored 1851 by J.H. Hakewill. Rubble stone with stone slate roofs and coped gables. West tower, nave, south aisle, south porch and chancel. C15 west tower has pointed west door, renewed 3-light west window, canopied niche over, diagonal buttresses, moulded dripcourses, flat-headed 2-light bell openings with pierced stone panels, panelled embattled parapet with corner pinnacles and centre bell-spirelet, openwork with crockets. Nave has ashlar 3-window C15 north wall with buttresses, moulded plinth and large Perpendicular flat-headed 3-light windows, possibly originally a north aisle. Small circular east window. South aisle has remarkable C14 Decorated detail. Sill course and massive ball flower eaves cornice carried around west end as hoodmould over 3- light west window with reticulated tracery. Three bay south side with stepped buttresses, moulded sill course and dripcourse, mouldings carried around buttresses and projecting ashlar south porch, dripcourse raised as hoodmould over 2-light pointed window each side of porch. Porch has moulded pointed arch with ogee headed niche over, three flat-headed cusped 2-light side windows with buttresses between, moulded sill course and eaves cornice. Ball flower cornice is not continued to right of porch. Right 2- light window has cusped lights and octofoil head. Exceptional pointed east window with reticulated tracery all ball flower ornamented and cusped. Blank bottom panel of middle light is ornamented with a miniature scheme of the window between buttress shafts. Very large pig gargoyle to right, between nave and aisle roofs. 1851 chancel with ball flower eaves cornice, south side lancet, buttress, door and 2-light window, east end 3-light with flamboyant tracery and north side gabled vestry and lancet. Interior: porch has transverse stone arches on wall shafts. Stone slab roof. Moulded pointed doorway with C19 door. Aisle has double-purlin roof with collar trusses, possibly original, nave has broad 1851 four-bay windbraced roof. Moulded tower arch, 1851 five-bay arcade of circular piers and 2-step pointed arches, the west arch springing from green-man carved corbel, of remarkable size and quality, possibly C19 but said to be original. Aisle has circular scalloped Norman font and fine canopied niche with buttress shafts in middle light of east window. Mutilated niche in wall to right. C19 chancel arch, scissor-truss chancel roof and encaustic-tiled sanctuary with c1851 stalls. Stained glass: deep coloured 1851 east window, pictorial style, one chancel south window of 1862. Nave north windows with, from east, patterned quarries of c1860, good C14 style glass of c1862 and good deep coloured window of 1864 signed Charles Gibbs. Nave east roundel has glass of c1860. (N. Pevsner, Wiltshire, 1975, 502-3)