CULLOMPTON † St Andrew
5m/8km S.E. of Tiverton
OS ST021071 GPS 50.8558N, 3.3910W
Another splendid town church, but unlike Crediton, St Andrew’s is 15th- and 16th-century Perpendicular. The fine red tower – one of the things one looks for from the train dashing down to Exeter – was finished in 1549. The second S. aisle was built in 1526 by John Lane, a wealthy cloth merchant. A rich fan-traceried roof has carvings of ships, sheep-shears, and so forth. The gorgeous coloured roof runs unbroken throughout the entire length of the church, and the splendid coloured rood screen runs across its entire width. Cullompton brings home to one the lavish colour of a medieval church against the white background of the Beer-stone arcades.
DARTMOUTH † St Petrox
7m/11km S.E. of Totnes
OS SX886503 GPS 50.3422N, 3.5661W
A splendid site at the very mouth of the Dart, the church makes a highly effective grouping with the castle and the wooded cliffs. This is an ancient Christian site, but the present church was entirely rebuilt in Gothic style, 1641–2, with much woodwork of that period and fine brasses to Dartmouth merchants.
DODDISCOMBSLEIGH † St Michael
6m/10km S.W. of Exeter
OS SX857865 GPS 50.6674N, 3.6179W
The N. aisle of this church has the best medieval glass in Devon outside Exeter Cathedral. A set of five large Perpendicular windows are painted in pale yellow and white with touches of red, green and blue. Here are delicately drawn saints, the Seven Sacraments and heraldry.
EXETER † St David
St David’s Hill
OS SX915931 GPS 50.7274N, 3.5382W
W. D. Caroe’s best church, 1897–1900, St David is a Romantic essay much influenced by the Celtic twilight as well as Art Nouveau. The interior is gargantuan in its expression, with powerful limestone ribs accentuating the bays of the narrow aisles and timber tunnel vault. The tall reredos is also by Caroe; the glass by the Kempe Studio.
EXETER † St Mary Arches
Mary Arches Street
OS SX918925 GPS 50.7223N, 3.5338W
Restored in 1950 by S. Dykes-Bower after war-time bomb damage, it is the only Devon parish church to retain two full Norman arcades, with plain piers and square scalloped capitals. The reredos, altar and rails date from 1696. There are many fine monuments to most of the mayors of Exeter. The rebuilt barrel-vaulted roof uses timbers recovered from a U.S. landing craft. Externally the church was poorly served by its restoration, which used imitation stone.
GITTISHAM † St Michael
2m/3km S.W. of Honiton
OS SY133983 GPS 50.7784N, 3.2300W
Luxuriant colouring is everywhere in this cob and thatch village in deepest east Devon. St Michael’s is the usual Perpendicular village church, but the atmosphere is 18th-century with the box pews, ceiled roofs, hatchments and a gallery. There are several pleasant 16th- to 19th-century mural monuments.
HACCOMBE † St Blaise
3m/4km E. of Newton Abbot
OS SX898701 GPS 50.5212N, 3.5558W
In an estate setting in parkland of the Carews, St Michael’s is a small 14th-century church with bellcote, modest porch and brightly coloured lancet windows. The church is notable for its fine collection of medieval effigies and brasses, 13th- to 17th-century, of various lords of Haccombe and members of the Carew family. There is some 14th-century glass, a stone screen, pulpit and reredos by Kendall of Exeter, 1821–2.
HARBERTON † St Andrew
2m/3km S.W. of Totnes
OS SX778586 GPS 50.4150N, 3.7209W
A large, unspoilt village in a fertile landscape, and a splendid 14th–15th-century church, with a handsome tower and a fine late-medieval rood screen; the vaulting and cornices are especially rich. The saints and angels depicted in the lower screen panels are said to be modelled on young ladies of the congregation in 1870, and are on metal plates. Some of the original painted wooden panels of saints thankfully survive, and can be seen on the N. aisle. The pulpit is 15th-century, octagonal and carved – one of Devon’s best. The richly painted 17th-century panels are of the Apostles, possibly replacing figures lost after the Reformation.
HARFORD † St Petroc
10m/16km E. of Plymouth
OS SX638594 GPS 50.4193N, 3.9181W
A 15th-century moorland church, it stands on the edge of Dartmoor and has a modest W. tower and ceiled wagon roofs. There is a tomb chest of 1566 with a brass of Thomas Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons.
HARTLAND † St Nectan
12m/19km N. of Bude
OS SS235247 GPS 50.9949N, 4.5165W
Not in the old borough but two miles W. at Stoke, overlooking the open, restless Atlantic; the tower was built as a landmark for mariners. It is a large 14th-century church with late 15th-century embellishments. The Norman font is splendid, as are the carved bench-ends of 1530; the wagon roofs are partly ceiled and coloured. The priest’s chamber above the N. porch is where the poet Parson Hawker wrote The Cell by the Sea in the 19th century. There are numerous modest little monuments and ledger slabs to local gentry, in which the parish abounded for centuries. The magnificent late 15th-century rood screen spans the entire width of the church.
HEANTON PUNCHARDON
† St Augustine
4m/6km N.W. of Barnstaple
OS SS502355 GPS 51.1000N, 4.1406W
Set above an estuary, St Augustine’s is mostly late medieval with a plastered interior and richly carved Perpendicular tomb to Richard Coffin, d. 1523, in the N. wall of the chancel.
HIGH BICKINGTON † St Mary
7m/11km S. of Barnstaple
OS SS599205 GPS 50.9670N, 3.9963W
St Mary’s, like so many in north Devon, is a hill-top church. The 12th-century building was altered and enlarged in the early 14th and early 16th centuries; the original wagon roofs were restored in the 19th century. There is a magnificent series of about 70 carved bench-ends of two distinct types: late Gothic, c. 1500, and Renaissance, c. 1530.
CULLOMPTON: ST ANDREW – the carved Beer-stone arcades, with a view through to the Lane Aisle, the skull and cross bones of a Gothic Golgotha at its west end
HITTISLEIGH † St Andrew
7m/11km S.W. of Crediton
OS SX733954 GPS 50.7448N, 3.7962W
An ordinary