Architectural Features
Chancel, chancel chapels and SE tower c.1200, but they must have been built against an existing aisled church.
N and S nave arcades rebuilt mid C14.
The E windows of the chancel and chapels are all C19 replacements in a C13 style
Of three stages, it has narrow late C12 lancets in the middle stage and somewhat larger pointed openings in the bell stage.
The blocked N door is C13 and has a pointed head and continuous mouldings.
The S aisle also has C19 Early English-style paired lights, replacing late medieval windows.
Part of an early C12 window is reused in the S aisle walling.
The S porch was also restored in the C19, but the S door, although heavily restored, is C12 and has one scalloped and one leaf capital, possibly reset.
The Early English-style nave W window is also C13, replacing a Perpendicular window
there are no windows in the W ends of the aisles, although an early watercolour shows them to have previously had small, probably C15 lights with square heads.
The chancel arch is C14 and has polygonal responds with moulded capitals and bases.
Similar early C13 arches open from the tower into the S aisle and from the NE chapel into the N aisle.
Mid C14 N and S nave arcades of five bays with chamfered arches on polygonal piers with moulded capitals and bases.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES Plain, polygonal C13 font supported on four slender shafts around a large, moulded central shaft.
The 13th century font was moved from the south door to the north doorway in 1990. The door, which was used for paupers' burials, was blocked up in 1863. It now displays a memorial board to the men and women of the parish who "gave their lives for freedom" in World War 2.
Small, probably C13 piscina in the chancel.
Some traceried panels from the C15 rood screen reused in the present low chancel screen.
Pulpit, of a C17 wine glass shape with Perpendicular style blind tracery on the body and trefoil-headed arcading on the stem.
C19 glass, the most notable of which is the S aisle window to Dante Gabriel Rosetti, with one panel designed by Frederick Shield, the other a copy of one of Rosetti's paintings (Rosetti is buried in the churchyard).
Recumbent figures on a tomb chest.
HISTORY There was probably a church at Birchington in the Anglo-Saxon period, and until the C19 it was a chapel of nearby Monkton church.
The construction history of the church is not entirely clear, but the evidence suggests that it was already its present size by c.1200.
The fragment of early C12 window reset in the S aisle suggests that there was a stone-built church on the site by that date.
When the arcades were rebuilt in the C14, the intention seems to have been to widen one or both aisles and build a new SW tower, but this was never carried out.
As a contract for work on the S aisle and new tower after the design of that at St Nicholas, Wade is dated 1343, it is likely that the work was curtailed by the Black Death and the project never resumed.
The C15 Perpendicular windows, lost in the C19, indicate that the church was extensively remodelled at that date, and the fragments of the rood screen indicate C15 refurnishing.
A drawing of c.1860 shows a probably C15 crown post roof in the chancel.
There was some refurnishing in the C17, and in the post-Reformation period the NE chapel served as a mortuary chapel for members of the Crispe family, owners of nearby Quex House.
SOURCES Lambeth Palace library, ICBS 06063,10698 Buildings of England: North-East and East Kent , 142-3 Burgess, J M. All Saints Church, Birchington: Church Guide REASONS FOR DESIGNATION Church of All Saints , Birchington, is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * An interesting parish church, probably C12 in origin with chancel, chancel chapels and SE tower of C.1200
nave N and S arcades rebuilt in the mid-C14