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All Saints, Sutton Benger, Wiltshire

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Outside

Inside
Memorials
Stained Glass
War Memorial

The parish church at Sutton Benger is called All Saints. It is not easy to ignore the busy road as vehicles speed by, but once inside the building it is very serene, and pleasing on the eye as well as ear!

John Aubrey noted: "Here have been good windows, and is a neat built tower*." "In the Parsonage Parlour here, over the chimney, are two hooded monk's heads cut in stone." "Anciently in this parish were vineyards, which are recited among other grants to the Longs by King Henry the Eighth. Gravelly land is the most natural for vines. Near this village, eastwards, is a gravelly field called "Barret's," which is sown every yeare with barley and with no other graine. Never lay fallow in the memory of the oldest man's grandfather there. Some years since, Leon. Atkins sowed a part of it with wheat, for a tryall. It came up wonderfully thick and high: but is proved but fair strawe, and had little or nothing inye eare."

Jackson's notes: " * The Church, which had probably been re-built towards the latter part of the "Decorated" period, was entirely restored in 1850. The East window of the South aisle, the tracery of which is Reticulated, has an interesting peculiarity: a stone panel at the bottom of the centre light, representing, outside, a model of the whole window in miniature. Inside the Church, the panel forms a canopied niche. The parapet resembles that of St. Cuthbert's, Wells. The Tower is at the West end; and from the centre of the roof of it, rises a pretty open-worked spire-let. The late Mr. Britton calls it a pinnacle, but not altogether incorrectly, as that word was sometimes applied to a spire, or turret, even to a cupola on the top of a turret; and indeed to any tall perpendicular member of the summit of a building."