The late C12 south arcade and chancel arch are the oldest identifiable parts and part of the chancel is also C12, with C14 alterations.  The tower and open stone spire date from 1807 and the north aisle and much of the chancel are later C19.

The visible building history starts with the three-bay south arcade, which has double-chamfered heads, small stops and round piers and is thus late C12.  The unusually deep capitals are almost all decorated with crudely carved leaves, damaged in places.  A scallop capital on the west respond looks earliest and there are other variations, including wider chamfers on the adjacent head, so, unusually, work may have started at the west end.  There is nothing to suggest it was inserted in an older nave walls, but it is quite probable.  The broad, double-chamfered chancel arch is also late C12; its inner order rests on semi-octagonal corbels on the responds.  The thicker walls of the western part of the chancel probably date from this period.

C19 rebuilding has changed much, but the Sharpe Collection drawing (1805) suggests the church had acquired much of its then appearance in the C14.  A tower at the east end of the aisle looks C14, with square-headed bell-openings and a quatrefoil-headed east window.  Without explanation, Peckham thought it C13 (2 p53).  The present tower is in a slightly different position (ibid), so though the plain pointed arch from the south aisle seems old, this is unlikely.  Similarly, though the arch from the chancel is like the chancel arch, it is C19 and a further example of the care with which the early C19 interior masonry was dressed.  Visible C14 windows included a three-light east one, a trefoil-headed north lancet in the chancel and two quatrefoil-headed ones in the north wall of the nave.  The present nave roof is mostly C19, but one tiebeam, the wall-plates and some lesser timbers look C14, as do the head-corbels.  The Sharpe drawing shows a C15 two-light square-headed window with a low sill on the north side of the nave and this is the likely date of the rood-stair south of the chancel arch.

John Constable’s watercolour (British Museum LB 23b 1882-2-15-49) shows the west end with an oblong window in the gable and a conventional porch with a sloping roof.  This is clearly a later alteration, probably after the C16.  He also shows the present tower of ashlar soon after an unknown architect added it in 1807.  Lord Egremont of Petworth House paid for it (Horsfield II p181), perhaps in order to enhance the view from the house; by tradition the designer was J M W Turner, a frequent visitor to Petworth who painted many views there, but this is unlikely as he did not visit the house until 1809 (1 p6).  Nevertheless, it is one of the finest early C19 towers with pinnacles, battlements and an open stone steeple known as a Scots Crown, like St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.  Other detail includes wooden Y-tracery bell-openings and curiously cusped roundels beneath.

J Carew, primarily a sculptor who worked extensively for the 3rd Earl of Egremont, is said to have altered the chancel at an unspecified date (Roscoe p195).  No likely such work is apparent, but the dates of his association with the Earl would accord with the addition of a north aisle in 1837 (3 p2) by an otherwise unknown architect.  As with most other work of the period here, its arcade follows the south one closely.  Indeed, David Parsons (1 p5), noting a rather indistinct opening visible in outline near the west end in the Sharpe drawing (which he acknowledges might only be a window), suggests that the arcade could be a previously concealed mediaeval one that was re-opened.  The removal of redundant aisles is common in Sussex, but if that were so in this case, it would be surprising if nothing had been visible before since it would have been exceptionally well preserved, unless it was almost totally rebuilt.   

Later C19 work is no better documented so no dates are known.  Both aisles have dormers and since the exterior of the south aisle is known to have been extensively altered in 1837, that may be the date of those to the south as well.  Probably at this time, the west end was altered, by placing a second storey on the porch as a pew for the Egremonts (EH) (though as they also had one in Petworth church and their own chapel in the house, they can only have used it occasionally).  This is open to the nave and is today in effect a west gallery.  It is not known when the chancel was extended with an east triplet, though in 1904-06 a new vestry and organ chamber were added north of the chancel.  Sir C Nicholson re-arranged the sanctuary in 1932 (CDG May 1932 p186).

Fittings and monuments

Altar rails: Early C18.
Carved stones: (Set into vestry wall) Indeterminate in date and origin.
Chest: Simple C13.
Font: Plain C12 octagonal bowl with unusually steeply sloping sides.
Glass:
1.  (Roundel at west end) Morris and Co, 1906, to a posthumous design by Sir E Burne-Jones, entitled Dies Domini (Sewter p187).
2.  P Bacon, 1910 (CDG May 1932 p186).
3.  Heaton, Butler and Bayne (nd, but listed in a company catalogue of 1932 and not at present identified) (Bayne p126).
4. (Millennium window) R J Lloyd, 2000 (church website).
Monuments:
1.  (Chancel) William Mitford (d1777) Wall monument in four different marbles, by A Outridge of Petersfield (Roscoe p931).
2.  Milward Row (1804?) by J Hinchliffe (ibid p619).
3.  Lt John Ayling (d1812 at the Battle of Badajoz) by J C F  Rossi (ibid p1058).
3.  Charles Mitford (1831?) by H Hopper (ibid p640).
4.  Rev James Clarke (d1834) by J Carew (ibid p196).
Royal Arms: (Above chancel arch) Painted arms of Charles II, dated 1661.

Sources

1.  D Parsons: St Mary, Petworth and All Hallows, Tillington, NFSHCT 2006 pp4-6
2.  W D Peckham: All Saints, Tillington, SNQ 11 (Aug 1946) p53
3.  F W Steer: Guide to the Church of All Hallows, Tillington (Sussex Churches no 45), 1972

Plan

Measured plan by W D Peckham in 2 plate III