All Saints' Church, Newchurch

All Saints' Church is an ancient cruciform structure. Although it was one of the six churches given by William FitzOsbern to an Lyra Abbey in Normandy, Henry VIII was later to give it to the See of Bristol. Living quarters are in a vicarage which included 3 acres of glebe.

The earliest building must have been of the 12th century, as there is evidence of 13th-century additions. The transept piers do not bond into the east wall of the nave, which, with its 4 ft thick wall, probably formed part of the original church. The eastern arches of the aisles spring from plain-splayed imposts, and the starting pier of the south aisle does not bond into the west wall. The 13th-century builders practically remodelled the whole structure, leaving it much as it is today – a nave of three bays, a fourth being formed by the transept arches, north and south aisles, a long chancel, north and south transepts and a south porch supporting a wooden tower containing six bells. The…