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All Saints church in the High
Street ... erected in 1706-8, we
do not know to whose design. Dean Aldrich is named as the designer by
Peshall in 1773, and that may be true. ... All Saints is one of the most perfect English churches of its date,
with none of the Baroque violence of Hawksmoor's churches and yet with
more force than Gibbs'. The church consists of a perfectly straightforward
oblong body without aisles or separate chancel or apse and a W tower
wholly projecting, i.e. not rising seemingly out of the body of the church
as Gibbs used to allow it to happen. The tower is square below, rusticated
in its lowest stage and provided with plain arched windows. The aprons of
the windows have something of Vanbrugh's and Hawksmoor's bluntness. The
bell-openings are arched, too, and the arches stand on extremely broad
pilasters.
The angles have rusticated pilasters. Then follow the recessed
rotunda with its detached columns and the little spire. Rotunda and spire
play an important role in the skyline of Oxford. The steeple was probably
modified from the original design after Hawksmoor had been consulted ... The sides of the
church have in the first bay to N as well as S a big portico of paired
Corinthian columns with a pediment. The sides then, and the end wall as
well, have plain arched windows between paired pilasters. There is an
attic too, with short, segment-headed windows.
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