More information : (TM 47907033) All Saints' Church (NR) (Site of) (1)
All Saints' Church (illus (6)) described as Norman and 16th century (3), was dismantled in 1778. In 1912, Bryant (4) says "only the nave walls remain and a tall Perp tower which has traces of Saxon long and short work at the base" (not confirmed elsewhere). The church began to disappear down the cliff in 1904 and finally the tower went in 1919. (2-6)
All Saints' Church is destroyed by cliff erosion. In the disused graveyard, bounded by a low bank, only one gravestone dated 1826 survives. The graveyard too is being eroded. The north west buttress of the church was re-erected in the graveyard of St James's Church (TM 47467056) in 1919. (7)
(TM 4785 7033) In October 1993, RCHME's Cambridge Office carried out emergency recording on the surviving remnant of the churchyard, following a request from Suffolk County Council (8). All Saints' Church was one of the six medieval churches of Dunwich and the last to be destroyed by coastal erosion. The remains of the tower were moved to the church yard of St James' (a 19th century church in modern Dunwich) in March 1922.
Before its destruction the church consisted of a chancel, nave and north aisle, with a south porch and a square, angle buttressed tower at the western end. Gardner states that All Saints' was built of flint and freestone and suggests a construction date in the mid 14th century.
Public worship was discontinued between 1754 and 1775 but burials continued to be made in the churchyard as late as 1836. Presumably this was the only ground as the new church of St James was not consecrated until September 1832. Coastal erosion destroyed All Saints' in the first decade of the 20th century.
The surviving fragment of the tower, in St James' churchyard, is the lower part of the north-west angle buttress of the church tower of dressed flint and freestone.
The Agas map of 1589 depicts All Saints' church within a rectangular enclosure, aligned east to west. The surviving part of the churchyard is situated immediately to the east of Greyfriars (TM 47 SE 3) and is bounded by a low earthen bank running north to south. Today, the cliff edge is 10m from the western edge of the churchyard.
The Reverend Francis Haslewood visited All Saints' in 1891 and recorded inscriptions on thirteen gravestones dating from the period 1793-1836. Only two still survive, situated near the western boundary of the churchyard.
For further details, see RCHME Level 3 client report and plan at 1:1000 scale, deposited in the NMR. (8) |