Summary

All Saints’ Church 187m north-east of Chapel Land Farm.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 30 July 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a medieval parish church surviving as upstanding and buried remains. It is situated on level ground north-west of New Romney on Romney Marsh.

The church is rectangular in plan with a chancel at the east end. It is built of roughly coursed stone interspersed with flint. The walls survive to the greatest extent at the angles of the building. The west end of the nave and the north and south return walls remain in the form of two L-shaped blocks about 4.5m high and 2-3m long in either direction, separated by a small gap. There is another block of similar dimensions at the south-east corner of the chancel. Low footings or buried foundations link the upstanding walls. Within the body of the church are three upstanding blocks of masonry about 1.5m high; one part of the east gable end, one the possible remains of the chancel arch and another at the south wall. The church is surrounded by a ditch, forming a quadrangular-shaped island approximately 63m long by 53m wide, with a break in the east and west side. There are traces of a possible sunken road, which may be associated with a deserted medieval village, in the vicinity of the church.

All Saints’ Church is thought to have 12th century origins but was altered in the 13th century. The church was in use in 1541 but had fallen into decay not long after. In 1663 it is recorded as ruinous, with only the chancel left standing, following neglect and storm damage. Edward Hasted describes the remains of the church in his ‘History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent’ of 1799. They included a round-headed chancel arch with zig-zag decoration, filled in but with a small gothic arch below it. There was a pointed arched east window but the rest of the windows were small round-headed openings.

An architectural survey of the church was carried out in 1988. Surface finds on or in the vicinity of the site have included a medieval lead token, a Papal Bull of Cellestine (1191-1198), buckles, two ampullae, a copper alloy strap, a seal matrix, coins ranging in date from Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) to Henry III (1207-1272), and medieval and post medieval pottery. These indicate a possible deserted medieval village in the vicinity of All Saints Church.

The standing remains of the church are Grade II listed.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

A parish church is a building, usually of roughly rectangular outline and containing a range of furnishings and fittings appropriate to its use for Christian worship by a secular community, whose members gather in it on Sundays and on the occasion of religious festivals. Children are initiated into the Christian religion at the church's font and the dead are buried in its churchyard. Parish churches were designed for congregational worship and are generally divided into two main parts: the nave, which provides accommodation for the laity, and the chancel, which is the main domain of the priest and contains the principal altar. Either or both parts are sometimes provided with aisles, giving additional accommodation or spaces for additional altars. Most parish churches also possess towers, generally at the west end, but central towers at the crossing of nave and chancel are not uncommon and some churches have a free-standing or irregularly sited tower. Many parish churches also possess transepts at the crossing of chancel and nave, and south or north porches are also common. The main periods of parish church foundation were in the 10th to 11th and 19th centuries. Most medieval churches were rebuilt and modified on a number of occasions and hence the visible fabric of the church will be of several different dates, with in some cases little fabric of the first church being still easily visible.

All Saints Church survives relatively well with a large amount of medieval masonry still upstanding. This provides significant evidence for the original layout of the church, which is supported by documentary sources. The site will contain archaeological information and environmental evidence relating to the construction, use and history of the church and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Websites
'Parishes: Hope All Saints', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Vol 8 (1799), 415-420, accessed from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63510&strquery=Hope+all+saints
Other
HER TR02NW10, TR02NW11. NMR TR02NW10, TR02NW11. PastScape 462759, 462762. LBS 175567,

Source: Historic England