The present Church on this site dates from about 1150AD.
The siting of the church next to the River Chelmer and not near Ulting Hall suggests that the present site may have been an early Christian meeting place in Saxon times. Both upstream and downstream are the extensive flood plains of the River Chelmer. All Saints Church stands at the only place for miles where higher land slopes down to the river bank.
The earliest records show that in 1299, Robert Fitzwalter, Lord of the Manor of Ulting gave the church to the Abbey at Beeleigh, some three miles down stream.
In 1477, a guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded at Ulting, but there had been a chapel before 1400 “in the Churchyard adjoining the Steeple”. This Chapel of “Our Lady of Ulting” is believed by some to have become a centre of pilgrimage. Medieval wills record gifts of jewellery and crosses to adorn the “holy” statue and other bequests paid for pilgrimages. The guild was dissolved in 1548 and the building demolished.
By 1871 the church was in an extremely poor state of repair, needing an almost total rebuild and had a major restoration in 1873.
