All Saints

C14 N door.

C15 porch, tower and rood stair turret, and C15 woodwork.

C17 pulpit and altar rails.

Very tall C15 N porch with diagonal buttresses and a tall outer doorway with engaged half shafts.

The porch has a C15 E window.

The inner N doorway is C14 and has many tiny mouldings.

It is set within an architectural frame comprising a square-headed, battlemented frame with carved spandrels and crocketed pinnacles to either side.

Above the frame, the steeply pitched scar of the former C14 porch is still visible.

To the right of the door in the porch inner W wall is a recess with a sept-foiled pointed head within a square frame with traceried spandrels, probably re-set from the C14 porch.

The plank and cover strip inner door is C15 or C16 and has a small, depressed-ogee-headed wicket door on the left.

INTERIOR The interior is heavily restored, but retains much medieval woodwork.

the intermediate trusses are of false hammerbeam design with carved angels

some of the tie beams appear to be medieval, but the rest is C19.

The C15 screen survives.

The moulded wallplate is medieval, and there may be medieval fabric behind the present ceiling.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES Chancel piscina late C15 or C16 with an almost flat cusped arch and embattled cornice.

Nave piscina C14 or C15 with a foiled pointed head in a square frame.

C15 chancel screen with coved top, and cusped and crocketted ogee arches, repaired in the 1920s, when a new cornice was added.

A good set of C15 benches, low with traceried ends and back panels.

C15 octagonal font with simple quatrefoils on each face, held together by an iron band around the bowl.

C17 communion rails with turned balusters.

Simple C17 timber polygonal pulpit on a short post, each face divided into two panels with an arch in the upper panel.

Reading desk made up out of two panels formerly part of the pulpit door.

The N choir stalls have C17 panelled backs and plainer panelled fronts

The floors are a mix of bricks and pamments (clay floor tiles).

HISTORY: The earliest visible fabric is the C13 work in the chancel, but it is likely that there was a church here earlier.

The church underwent substantial rebuilding in the C14 and the lavishness of the N door suggests that considerable money was spent on the church at this time.

The church was further remodelled and refurnished in the C15, when the tower and rood screen were added.

The pulpit and altar rails are evidence of refitting in the C17, and it was repaired and restored in the C19 with further work in the early C20.

SOURCES Cautley, H M, Suffolk Churches , 220 Mortlock, D P, The Popular Guide to Suffolk Churches, I: West Suffolk , 10-11 Pevsner, N. and Radcliffe, E., The Buildings of England: Suffolk , 85 REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The church of All Saints, Barnardiston is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * Excellent medieval fabric, including a fine Decorated N doorway with a C15 or C16 door with wicket. * Notable medieval fittings including a set of C15 benches and a sympathetically restored C15 screen. * Good C17 fittings including a simple pulpit, altar rails and choir stalls.