| Description | The chancel and transepts of rubble stone are the earliest parts; they now have tall 'Perpendicular' windows but the chancel also has two Norman windows, and traces of another one destroyed by the insertion of 'Perpendicular' window in east end. Spacious nave with eastern window above the chancel. Aisles of C14 to C15 with embattled parapets and Perpendicular windows. Western tower probably C14 or C15, with embattled parapet and small lead covered wooden spire, the South porch is typical C18. On the North side are parts of a Norman doorway, probably not in original position. Inside West end of North aisle are shafts of three Saxon crosses and a massive mediaeval grave slab with Gothic lettering. The oak pulpit is of typical Georgian work. There are many monuments to members of important local families, the most interesting one being an alter tomb with recumbent effigies of grandparents of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, the commander of the Parliamentary army in the Civil War. Cl9 railings to Church Lane, standards with arrow heads.
Parish Church of All Saints and Memorial to victims of Bramhope Tunnel Disaster form a group with Nos 1 and 2 Church Lane. Text edited from English Heritage's National Heritage List of England.
All Saints' Church, Otley, consists of a four bay aisled nave with west tower, south porch, and transepts, and a chancel with 19th century north and south vestries. The church may date from the Pre conquest period, with alterations in the 16th and 19th centuries. The church has a rectangular churchyard which contains mainly 19th century monuments.
The tower is built of squared gritstone, and is square in plan, without any buttresses. There is a two step chamfered plinth, the lower member being partly below ground level. On the west the plinth is cut by an inserted square headed doorway to the tower stair. A chamfered string course and a slight set back mark the base of the belfry. The east belfry opening has been altered, and is now largely hidden by the clock. There is another string course, hollow chamfered along its lower angle, at the base of the embattled parapet; large parts of this, and of the parapet coping, are modern restoration.
The lower part of the west gable of the nave, exposed on either side of the tower, is of precisely similar fabric to the tower, with the same plinth, except at the lower part of its northwest corner where the neatly squared stones of its coursed masonry have been shaped to fit them round five or six less regularly sized blocks of an earlier quoin, the presence of which indicates that the masonry coeval with the tower is a re facing of an older wall. The re faced gable was heightened in coursed roughly squared stone when the clerestorey was added in the 19th century. Straight joints separate the west wall stonework from that of the aisles.
The clerestory consists of six windows in both north and south walls. The slab coping of an earlier and thicker east gable is exposed at a lower level just above the present chancel roof.
The south aisle is built of squared gritstone in quite long blocks. The south wall has a chamfered plinth which drops in level eastwards. The wall is divided into four bays, with the south porch projecting from the second. At the east end of the wall and between the third and fourth bays are buttresses, rising to a chamfered course at the base of the embattled parapet, which has a simple moulded coping.
The south porch is built of squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. It has a round headed classical outer arch with an archivolt, a keystone with vermiculate ornament and moulded imposts carried back as a vermiculate band; above is an open pedimented gable with a moulded coping. |