All Saints, Hillesden

Sir George Gilbert Scott had a strong affinity with the church at Hillesden and had sketched it several times on his early sketching tours around his local area. When Scott joined the Architectural Society in January 1835, he donated a superb measured drawing he made of the screen of Hillesden Church. He reported on the church in 1873 summing up his affection for the building by saying ‘it is a choicest specimen of a village church in the county and very few in England, of its period and scale, surpass or equal it’. He restored it between 1874-5, treating it with an almost imperceptible gentleness. The work was carried out by Franklin of Deddington at a cost of £2,200 but Scott donated a fine fan-vault for the porch and he also waived his fees.

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