"Lubenham church is first mentioned in 1109, when Robert son of Vitalis, lord of Foxton, gave the church and tithes from his fee in Lubenham to St. Augustine's Priory, Daventry (Northants.). This gift probably included the advowson, but by 1200 the house was no longer considered sole patron of the living; the prior then retained a claim to a pension, tithes, and a fourth turn of the advowson which produced several legal disputes. It is not clear how the advowson was transferred from the priory to Ralph Trussell who was recognized as patron between 1200 and 1220. By 1247 the Trussell fee had been divided between the Baud and Wolwardington families, but the advowson was held in common. In 1285 it was agreed that presentations to the living should be made alternately, first by a Baud and then by a Wolwardington. But in 1364 William, son of John Baud, alienated his right of presentation by enfeoffing John Tamworth with a rood of land to which the advowson belonged. By 1387 this rood had come into the hands of Warin Waldegrave, a great-grandson of Peter de Wolwardington, and heir to the other half of the Trussell fee, who therefore possessed the whole right of presentation. His nephew and heir John Waldegrave alienated the advowson for a term of years, but when he sold his half of the Trussell fee in 1421 he expressly reserved for himself the rood to which the advowson belonged. By 1476 the advowson belonged to the heirs of Thomas Palmer (d. 1475) of Holt, who had acquired Baud's half of the Trussell fee, and in 1478 they conveyed it to the trustees of William, Lord Hastings (d. 1483). In 1481 the latter was licensed to grant the church of Lubenham, presumably with the advowson, to Sulby Abbey (Northants.) with provision for appropriation and the ordination of a vicarage. This house appropriated the rectory, took tithes, and claimed a beast as a mortuary fee.
After the Dissolution the rectory and advowson of Lubenham were granted in 1549 to two London merchants, John Maynard and Richard Grymes. Various members of the Grymes family presented to the living until about 1835. On the next presentation in 1842 the patron was Richard Mitchell, lord of the manor.Since then the advowson has descended with the manor.
After many disputes the Prior of Daventry in 1215 appears to have surrendered his right to a pension from Lubenham rectory but he was being paid £2 a year in 1291. He also continued to take tithes from the fee which came into the hands of the Mallesours family.In 1317 and 1320-3 the priory was involved in litigation to secure its right to these tithes against the rector's claim, and in 1370 the prior and two fellow monks were accused of besieging and breaking into the Rectory. A 14th-century Daventry account book valued the prior's rights in Lubenham at 33s. 4d. a year. Wolsey included Daventry Priory in dissolutions authorized for the foundation of his college in Oxford, and a portion of tithes in Lubenham was included in Wolsey's endowment in 1526 and in Henry VIII's endowment in 1532,but it does not appear in the final foundation of Christ Church in 1546. Tithes from the fee in Lubenham which was held from the lords of Belvoir were granted before 1220, probably in the early 12th century, to the Abbot of St. Albans. These were valued at £1 13s. 4d. in 1291.
The rectory of Lubenham was valued at £12 a year in 1254 and at £18 in 1291. In 1650 it was worth £130. After the royal grant of the rectory and advowson in 1549 the Grymes family secured the whole of the rectory and it was subsequently divided among them. The profits of the rectory were in the hands of John Poultney and others in 1647. After several changes of ownership, the Wrights, lords of the manor, owned the great tithes by 1735. At the inclosure in 1767, John Wright as impropriator received allotments of 168 a. for tithes and 17 a. for glebe. In 1845 the remaining rectorial tithes were commuted for £9 10s. 6d., payable to Thomas Paget; in addition rent-charges totalling £240 9s. were awarded to various freeholders from their own lands, but these were extinguished shortly afterwards.
In 1535 the vicarage endowed by Sulby Abbey was worth £8 5s. a year, with 16s. 6d. in tithes. The vicar's stipend in 1650 was £12; in 1649 and 1652 it was increased by £50 a year from the sequestered rectory. John Wright (d. 1761), lord of the manor, increased the stipend to £20 a year and after a further addition the whole sum was secured upon the allotment for tithes given to the impropriator at the inclosure in 1767. The living received several augmentations during the 18th and 19th centuries. From Queen Anne's Bounty it was allotted £200 in 1767, £200 in 1809, and £200 in 1844, the last to meet two gifts of £100 each. In 1818 it received £1,200 from a parliamentary grant. The endowment of £10 from the Common Fund granted in 1859 was exchanged for land in the parish in 1863. The benefice received two further small augmentations in 1884 and 1910. The old parsonage house which stands to the east of the church is a small twostoried brick cottage carrying the initials J.W. and the date 1737. The Vicarage which replaced it used to belong to H. E. Bullivant (d. 1899), a former vicar. In 1869 he was licensed to use his house as the Vicarage, and it remained with the parish after his death.
A chantry in Lubenham church is first mentioned in 1270 when Gregory of Lubenham was presented to it by the rector, Hugh de Binington, who had endowed it with some unspecified property. In 1570 property in Lubenham formerly belonging to the chantry, which amounted to 2 messuages, 1 cottage, 3½ virgates, 14 roods, 7 leasows, 3 closes, and a croft, was granted to Nicaise Yetsweirt and Bartholomew Brokesby. The chantry may have occupied the north chapel of the church which later became the vestry.
Thomas Reynolds (1752-1829), a noted antiquary who contributed to Nichols's History of Leicestershire and the Gentleman's Magazine, was Vicar of Lubenham from 1787 to 1800. He was the son of Joseph Reynolds, Rector of Marston Trussell (Northants.), and Elizabeth, daughter of John Wright (d. 1761), lord of Lubenham manor. During the greater part of the 19th century the living was held by father and son in succession, Henry Bullivant (1785-1842), and Henry Everard Bullivant (1817-99), who were also rectors and patrons of the adjoining parish of Marston Trussell.
The church of ALL SAINTS stands on the south side of the village, close to the river. It is constructed of ironstone dressed with limestone, and consists of chancel, clerestoried nave, north chapel, north and south aisles, south porch, and low embattled west tower which is thought to have once carried a spire.
It is difficult to follow the different stages in the complex history of the fabric, but the oldest features, two circular piers in the north arcade of the nave, date from the late 12th century. One of them has a contemporary square abacus and foliage capital. Walling at the east end of the south nave arcade may also be part of the Norman church. The addition of north and south chapels on either side of the chancel probably dates from the early 13th century; the south chapel was subsequently taken down. The north chapel is divided from the chancel by a semicircular archway, and traces of the corresponding arch into the south chapel remain in the south chancel wall. Openings from the aisles into the chapels were of slightly later date. The main reconstruction of the nave and the building of the south aisle (later truncated at its west end) appear to have taken place in the later 13th century. The south arcade, of one wide and two narrower pointed arches, is of this period, as is the south doorway in the aisle. The partial re-modelling of the north arcade and the rebuilding of the north aisle soon followed, and this work was still apparently in progress during the early 14th century. There is a single lancet at the west end of the aisle and part of an early-14th-century window in the north wall. The north doorway has a semicircular arch which might be assumed to date from c. 1200, but its jambs appear to be part of the later masonry of the aisle wall. The north arcade consists of three pointed arches, the narrower central arch supported on the original Norman piers. The east respond of the arcade and the chancel arch are both of late-13th-century date. The same is true of the sedile and piscina in the north chapel; a large grotesque corbel head on which one side of the sedile arch rests may be reset. An elaborate early-14thcentury recess in the north wall of the chancel, which possibly served as an Easter sepulchre, has a richlymoulded pointed arch springing from moulded responds with capitals; it is surmounted by crockets and a finial, now defaced. The arch is flanked by octagonal crocketted features, while an inner arch has cusps terminating in carved heads. A squint between chancel and north chapel, set under the blocked earlier arch, has damaged tracery of 14thcentury date on the side facing the chapel.
The tower was added late in the 13th century, the original arch into the nave and some lower rubble courses remaining. The capitals and responds of the arch have keel mouldings. In the 14th century a plinth was inserted and the tower rebuilt up to the level of the present clerestory; the masonry suggests that the early tower may have collapsed and that the rebuilding was carried out in two phases. The diagonal buttresses are of c. 1400.
The demolition of the south chapel probably took place in the later 14th century when two windows with ogee-headed lights were inserted in the south wall of the chancel. At the same time the east end of the south aisle was rebuilt; a window in its east wall, now blocked, has reset 13th-century corbels. The east window of the chancel was replaced in the 19th century, but its hoodmould and parts of its 14thcentury jambs remain. Diagonal buttresses at the east end of the chancel are probably of the same date. Rood-loft door openings survive on each side of the chancel arch and part of the medieval screen was, in 1960, lying in the chancel.
In the 15th century several important alterations were made to the church, including the demolition of the westernmost bay of the south aisle. The remaining window in the aisle, a 19th-century copy of the original, is of Perpendicular type. A similar window, now restored, was inserted in the blocked arch at the west end of the south arcade. At about the same time or slightly earlier the nave clerestory was added. The walls of the chancel were raised in the 15th century and the 'low side' window in the south wall of the chancel was partly blocked. A small cusped opening was cut through the wall nearby. The upper stage of the tower, with embattled parapet and two-light belfry windows, was probably added c. 1600. At about this time the north chapel, which had become a private burial chapel after the dissolution of the chantry, was virtually rebuilt and a 14th-century window reset in the north wall; a door and other windows are of the 17th century.
The tower was repaired in 1727 and 1795, and the west door was probably inserted in 1727. The south porch was rebuilt by H. M. Stratford of Marston Trussell Hall in 1862. The openings between the north chapel and the chancel and aisle, which had been blocked probably while the chapel served as a schoolroom, were unblocked in 1859. The three-light window at the west end of the wall of the north aisle, in the Perpendicular style, was given by B. J. Angell in 1862. The nave roof may have been repaired c. 1860. The east window of the chancel was installed in 1900, and the church was restored and re-roofed in 1934-5.
A Corinthian-styled oak reredos in the chancel together with altar rails and side panelling were in situ as late as 1865, but part of this furnishing was in 1960 lying in the south aisle. The altar is a 17thcentury oak table with massive turned and carved legs. On either side of it are two 17th-century chairs, one of which was placed in the church in 1812. The pulpit and box pews probably date from the repair of the church in 1810-12 when a gallery was constructed at the west end of the nave. Four supporting posts survive from this structure, cut flush with the pew tops. The pulpit, a three-decker with tester and panelled back, has a lower reader's desk. In 1812 a large pew on the south side of the chancel was occupied by Thomas Wright, lord of the manor, and his servants; pews at the west end of the north aisle were allotted to the parish workhouse and female servants.
The south aisle is almost entirely filled by a large pew of probable Jacobean date which originally had a balustraded screen above its panelled sides. Only the door into the pew retains its balusters and there are signs that the pew was reduced in size c. 1812. It is the property of the owners of Thorpe Lubenham Hall and at the east end of the aisle is a funeral hatchment of F. P. Stratford (d. 1841) of the hall. The aisle is said to have been maintained by the owners of the hall.
Two medieval bench-ends with linenfold panels have been re-used in the north chapel, where there is a quantity of reset panelling of the 17th and 18th centuries. The large carved chest with traceried panels may have originally been placed there by the Revd. Henry Everard Bullivant who was a collector of antiquities. Fixed desks remain from the school held in the chapel. The organ, partly occupying the west end of the chapel, is said to be over a hundred years old; on the back of the organ hangs a map of Lubenham dated 1816. Loose bench-ends with poppy-heads lie in the nave. A charity board dated 1810 hangs in the north aisle, and there is a Hanoverian coat of arms above the chancel arch. The present octagonal font dates from the 19th century and has occupied its present site since at least 1849; the medieval font was then said to have been destroyed when alterations were made in 1812.
In the chancel are mural tablets to the Bullivant family: the Revd. John Bullivant (d. 1803) and his wife, Henry Bullivant (d. 1842), and Henry Everard Bullivant (d. 1899). There are tablets to the Wright family of late-18th-century date, and in the nave above the north arcade is a small tablet to George Bosworth of Papillon Hall (d. 1830) and his wife."
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