All Saints, West Ham

All Saints is the Grade I medieval parish church of West Ham, now in the London Borough of Newham, a large ragstone church with a fifteenth-century tower, in the Diocese of Chelmsford.

Overview

Historic England lists a church of the twelfth century onwards: coursed rubble, brick, tile and ashlar dressings with tiled roofs. The castellated west tower is of about 1400, in ragstone mended with tiles, with a crenellated octagonal stair turret. The nave is Norman, with blocked clerestory windows; a seven-bay nave of the mid thirteenth century was extended east about 1400. The north chancel chapel of about 1550 is red brick with blue-brick diapering and Tudor-arched windows. The south side was refaced in the early nineteenth century in yellow stock brick. Fine roofs include late-fifteenth-century nave tie beams and a chancel roof of about 1500. Architectural fragments from Stratford Langthorne Abbey are built in, including a two-light window. The reredos is by Sir George Gilbert Scott. There are fine medieval and later monuments.

The Victoria County History traces the parish church from the late twelfth century, when Henry II confirmed West Ham church to Stratford Abbey. Crossing and transepts were removed in the fifteenth century when the nave was lengthened and the present tower built. Galleries added in the eighteenth century were removed in the later nineteenth. The parish is West Ham All Saints, in the Diocese of Chelmsford.

Further Information

• All Saints, West Ham
• Historic England list entry 1358002
• Wikipedia
• VCH Essex: West Ham churches