Listed Building: CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS (412642)

POOLE SZ09SE WESTERN ROAD, Branksome Park 958-1/6/208 (West side) Church of All Saints GV II Church. 1875-77. By Burton and Stevens of Bournemouth. For Henry Bury. Porch added 1928. Coursed squared Purbeck stone with limestone dressings; tiled roof with ornamental crestings. PLAN: apsed chancel, vestry and organ chamber to NW of chancel, nave and W porch. Decorated Gothic Revival style. EXTERIOR: 2-bay chancel has 5-sided apse with offset buttresses terminating in trefoiled gablets and 2-light windows with cusped heads to lights, quatrefoil to head and hoodmoulds with label stops. A pair of similar windows to S side of chancel. 2-storey vestry and organ chamber to N side of chancel has hipped roof and paired lancet windows to E side at upper level, 3 similar lancets to N side, chamfered doorway to N and 3-light stone mullion window at lower level to W side; C20 extension to E side and offset angle buttresses. 5-bay nave has 2-light windows with cusped heads to lights and, alternately trefoils in pherical triangle and encircled quatrefoils to heads with hoodmould and label stops. Wheel window in W gable with 8 spokes, trefoiled heads to divisions and central quatrefoil. Pointed ventilation slit above and single bellcote to apex with stone-coped gable, kneelers and foliated gable cross. W door has 2 orders of shafts, double keel-moulded head and hoodmould. Now in porch with chamfered doorway to N and larger doorway to W with chamfered jambs, moulded head and hoodmould. Offset buttresses to W end of nave, similar buttresses between bays, stone-coped nave gables with kneelers and foliated gable cross to E end of nave. Plinth, chamfered stone eaves and corbel table to nave. INTERIOR: nave and chancel have pitch pine hammerbeam roofs resting on wall shafts. Chancel has 2-bay arcade at upper level to organ chamber with central pier of quatrefoil section and shafts to responds. Vestry door below with 1 order of shafts and keelmoulded head. Chancel arch has responds of trefoil section and many-moulded head. FITTINGS: limestone reredos to high altar with paired alabaster colonnettes pinnacles, corbel table and inset relief panel with Last Supper. Fine set of late C19 stained-glass windows to chancel depicting various saints, of uniform design. Stencilled walls below windows (renewed). Brass double corona chandelier. Low wrought-iron chancel screen on stone base, with brass enrichments. Matching brass lectern. Polygonal limestone pulpit with red marble shafts, and foliage ornament to cornice. Medieval font bowl from Church of St Edmund, Salisbury, of Purbeck marble. Bowl is octagonal, and has paired blank arches to sides with round trefoil heads; C19 circular stem with 4 short serpentine shafts, limestone foliage capitals and moulded bases, on octagonal plinth. HISTORICAL NOTE: the church was built for Henry Bury of Branksome Towers and the exclusive new suburb which he was developing on his estate, Branksome Park. The first incumbent, Edward Bury, was a member of the family. All Saints' is a very complete and well-furnished small church of the 1870s, little altered, in an unusually attractive setting. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Newman J: Dorset: London: 1972-; All Saints' Church Branksome Park (guide leaflet): Poole: 1980-; Clarke, Canon B: Mss notes: 1977-1978). Listing NGR: SZ0599890422

Record last edited

May 22 2015 1:59PM