Peter Stanford’s new book tells the history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through twenty buildings and spaces. The third to be featured in our series is the Church of All Saints in the village of Brixworth, Northamptonshire

Peter Stanford’s new book tells the history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through twenty buildings and spaces. The third to be featured in our series is the Church of All Saints in the village of Brixworth, Northamptonshire

The public face of this eccentrically large – and once even larger – church is spellbindingly Saxon. There is the Saxon lower half of its tower and, at the other end, a remarkable Saxon ring crypt, one of only three surviving in the country, with an outdoor, sub­terranean passageway – or ambulatory – behind the main altar.

Most striking of all, though, are the four monumental, round-headed Saxon arches, made of reused Roman red bricks, that line each side of the nave.

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