Situated at the North end of All Saints Street in Hastings is All Saints
Church. All perpendicular work, 1360-1485, except the modern vestry it has
a striking tower made more so by the church being raised well above the street
level.
This church was closed on our visit to Hastings and we could not gain entry
to see the details or fittings.
It has a very beautiful sedilia and piscina under a hood-moulding; A brass,
circa 1520, to Thomas Goodenough and wife on the south wall of the south aisle.
The nave arcades with depressed four-centered arches and hollowed octagonal
piers are late perpendicular work. There are traces of an earlier Norman church
in re-used stone-work in the south wall of the chancel. The vaulting of the
tower with its grotesque corbels, one a boar's head coloured, and the signs
of the Zodiac round the central bell hole, and the image niche and stoup in
the south porch are worthy of notice, as is the late 15th century painted
Doom above the chancel arch, regarded as one of the finest medieval wall paintings
in the country.
The tower of All Saints in Hastings
An inscription in favour of bells, dated 1756, on the north wall of the
tower is unusual (see here
for more details).
In a black marble stone are still recognisable the portraits of a man and
woman who came here in 1458. The chancel walls are covered with painted saints
and angels. In the churchyard lies a writer of popular tracts about a hundred
years ago. Old Humphrey, and old Humphrey avenue keeps his name alive.
Top of Page main
page: www.yeoldesussexpages.com
