All Saints Church, Idmiston
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All Saints Church in Idmiston,
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...
, England, was built in the 12th century. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
as a Grade I
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
and is in the care of The
Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
. It was declared redundant in 1977, and was
vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property are acquired by some Legal person, person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vest ...
in the trust the next year.


Description

The church is built of
flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...
with interspersed
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
. It has a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, and a chancel, and was begun in the 12th century. The only remaining structure from that century is the lower part of the tower; the later
corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a bearing weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applie ...
of the east arch under the tower are decorated with re-used 12th-century crudely carved heads. The 13th-century
chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...
has
lancet windows A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...
. Aisles were added in the later 13th century, and at some point they were lengthened to embrace the tower. In the 15th century the two-storey north porch was built, almost all the nave windows were changed and the
clerestory A clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey; from Old French ''cler estor'') is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye-level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, a ''clerestory' ...
added, with parapets and gargoyles. The tower had a steeple until it was taken down in 1668, and replaced at some point by a wooden belfry. The church was heavily restored by
John Loughborough Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficie ...
in 1865 to 1867. Part of the tower and belfry collapsed during the work, so the upper parts were rebuilt higher, with a shingled pyramid. The south door was replaced by a window, and the north wall of the chancel rebuilt. New stained glass was installed in the east and west windows. The chancel roof is 19th-century but the low-pitched roofs to the nave and aisles are 15th-century, with carved bosses and fine carved corbels, of the Somerset type according to Pevsner. The 13th-century octagonal
font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...
is made of
Purbeck Marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology S ...
. The stone pulpit and the altar rail and pews are 19th-century. The tower carries four bells, two of them from the 17th century and one from the 18th, but at present they are said to be unringable. The tombs and memorials include a kneeling figure in a niche, for Giles Rowbach (died 1633) who was probably lord of the manor. There are also wall tablets for John Bowle (1725–1788), his wife Elizabeth and members of their family; he was the vicar of Idmiston and is known today primarily for his ground-breaking, annotated edition of the early 17th century
Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...
novel ''
Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...
''. 18th-century tombs in the churchyard include two further Bowle monuments.


Fate

After attendance at the church dwindled, it closed and was declared redundant, with St Nicholas' at
Porton Porton is a village in the Bourne valley, Wiltshire, England, about northeast of Salisbury. It is the largest settlement in Idmiston civil parish. The village gives its name to the nearby Porton Down military science park, which is home to t ...
taking over the role of
parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...
. It was taken into care by the Redundant Churches Fund (now the
Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
) in September 1978.


See also

*
List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in Southwest England The Churches Conservation Trust, which was initially known as the Redundant Churches Fund, is a charity whose purpose is to protect certain historic churches at risk, namely those that have been made redundant by the Church of England. The Tru ...
*
List of ecclesiastical restorations and alterations by J. L. Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (1817–97) was an English architect whose works were mainly ecclesiastical. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, and spent his childhood in Durham, England, Durham. Pearson started his architectural training under Ignatiu ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Idmiston, All Saints Church of England church buildings in Wiltshire 12th-century church buildings in England Grade I listed churches in Wiltshire Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust John Loughborough Pearson buildings