NHER 10039 (Building record) - All Saints' Church, Carleton Rode

December 1959. Listed Grade I.
Listing Description:
Church of All Saints, Church Road.
Fabric from late 13th century. Late 13th-century chancel with two windows with two trefoil headed lights and trefoil over, four-light east window with intersecting tracery, the mullions with thin shafts. Late 13th-century south doorway with moulded arch and shafts and double piscina with trefoiled arches and quatrefoil above with hood-mould with leaf corbels. Nave, and north and south aisles with clerestory, with mainly Perpendicular windows, but late 13th-century south aisle east window and north aisle west window and north door. Four bay north and south arcades and chancel arch with octagonal piers and double-hollow-chamfered arches. 15th-century south porch with diagonal buttresses, rounded arch and blocked Perpendicular windows. Squat 14th-century west tower repaired in 1717 with angle buttresses, embattled parapet and pinnacles.
Interior: 15th-century screen with painted figures. 13th-century stained glass panel in south window of chancel. Octagonal font. Late 16th-century alter table.
Built of flint rubble with stone dressings, chancel rendered, and with tiled, slate and lead roofs.
Information from (S1).
P. Watkins (HES), 24 July 2019.

April 2004. Building Survey.
Briefly examined by E. Rose (NLA):
Basically Early English with very fine but much restored chancel. Nothing visible predates 13th century. Tower and porch probably 14th century, altered in 15th. Tower part collapsed in 18th century; reduced and repaired in knapped flint. 19th-century restorations. 13th-century stained glass; 14th-century tower door.
See report (S2) for further details.
E. Rose (NLA), 21 April 1994. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 24 July 2019.

The 18th-century churchyard wall to the south and west of the church was listed Grade II in 1981.
This is now recorded separately as NHER 63590.
P. Watkins (HES), 24 July 2019.

March-April 2016. Watching Brief.
Maintained during the lowering of the floor level within the church tower (which had been 0.45m higher than that of the nave prior to the commencement of these works).
The earliest deposit encountered was a mid brown sandy clay which was present across the entire internal area of the tower and interpreted as the old topsoil. There was no evidence for either burials or a precursor to the present tower. The former topsoil was cut by the foundation trenches for the tower walls and overlain by an uneven spread of orange lime mortar that either represented construction debris or an early floor surface. A short length of flint and mortar wall was revealed in the south-east part of the tower, running parallel to its south wall. Remnants of wood on the smooth upper surface of the wall indicate it had formed a sleeper foundation for a wooden structure or beam and it was abutted by a layer of hard white mortar (suggesting the floor had been renewed around the time of its construction). This work revealed other evidence for the presence of wooden structures within the tower, including a deposit of probable decayed wood at its western end that was likely to represent the remnants of another beam. Probable post holes were also identified, although it is unclear if these were contemporary with the other features. It is possible that these remains were related to a raised bell-ringing floor. Alternatively, the beams may have been associated with a suspended floor and the post-holes with construction scaffolding. At some point the wooden structure(s) was removed and the eastern part of the tower floor raised to the same level as that to the west – an which point additional steps were added for access from the nave. Unfortunately none of these events could be accurately dated as no finds were recovered during these works.
See report (S3) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 7 July 2025.


August-November 2017. Watching Brief.
Monitoring undertaken during removal of pews and wooden floor from north and south aisles.
In both aisles a void was exposed beneath the wooden floor, which was then infilled with rubble and soil and a new tile floor laid at the same level as the nave floor.
Removal of a wooden wall plate along the south aisle revealed scars in the plaster likely to indicate the position of an earlier set of pews. It was also noted that the width of this aisle was not consistent, narrowing slightly to the west.
No significant observations were made during the work in the north aisle.
No finds were recovered.
The pews that were removed probably dated to 1875, when the aisle and nave pews are known to have been renewed.
See report (S4) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 31 August 2020.