Church Of St Stephen

Church of St Stephen

A parish church of Late 11th-century origin with major phases of construction and alteration continuing through the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. The building was restored around 1859 and underwent further restoration between 1878 and 1880 by St. Aubyn.

The church is constructed from small blocks of uncoursed ragstone with dressings of Caen stone, tufa and ragstone. The roofs are plain tile.

The architectural plan developed in distinct stages. The Late 11th-century tower originally stood with a nave to its east. A new nave was added to the west in the early to mid-12th century, later rebuilt or altered in the 13th century. The original eastern nave was reconstructed as a chancel in the 13th century. A north aisle to the nave was added in the 13th century, possibly rebuilt in the 14th century, and a north chapel to the tower of 13th-century date is now continuous with the aisle. A north porch dates to the 14th century.

The nave features a west gable end rebuilt around 1859 with a small chimney stack, a lancet window and a pointed-arched west doorway. The south elevation displays two buttresses and three 19th-century lancets. The tower rises in four stages with clasping buttresses, a plain stone-coped and slightly cambered parapet, and has stumps of 11th-century nave walls to its east. The belfry has two broad 19th-century lancets to each face. Blank arcading appears at the base of the south side of the second stage, and there is one blocked round-headed window at the base of the east side of the third stage. Two conjoined restored lancets occupy the south side of the bottom stage.

The chancel has two south buttresses and a vestigial north buttress, with three restored lancets to each face, those to the east featuring bull's-eye windows above. A rainwater head is dated 1872.

The north chapel and north aisle are gabled. Two tall, narrow east lancets light the north chapel, with five north lancets of uneven size and one 19th-century west lancet. The north porch is of stone with a vestigial plinth, small rectangular hollow-chamfered windows to each side, 19th-century moulded bargeboards, a partly renewed pointed-arched hollow-chamfered north doorway, and a narrow pointed-arched inner doorway with slightly rounded jambs set within boarded inner door studded AGCW.

Interior

The nave contains a two-bay 13th-century arcade of lightly-chamfered pointed arches springing from chamfered imposts on rectangular plain-chamfered piers with bar stops. Tower arches to west and east feature enriched early to mid-12th-century imposts, the east arch being round-headed and the west arch chamfered and pointed, rebuilt above its imposts in the 13th century. The north tower arch resembles the north arcade of the nave. Blank arcading is visible above the west tower arch at the base of the second stage when viewed from the nave, and one blocked round-headed window appears above the north tower arch. Broad, chamfered pointed-arched recesses flank the east tower arch on the west side of the wall.

The north aisle and chapel retain a continuous crown-post roof featuring moulded octagonal crown-posts, hollow-chamfered tie-beams and pendant posts with short solid-spandrel braces and ashlar-pieces. The nave and chancel have a 19th-century roof.

Fittings include a plain-chamfered pointed-arched stoup with a bar stop towards the east end of the south chancel wall. The font is a rectangular late 12th or early 13th-century piece with a shallow panelled bowl bearing defaced figures, set on 20th-century shafts. Continuous stone benches line the north and south walls of the chancel.

Monuments comprise a low 17th-century stone chest tomb against the south chancel wall with a chamfered base and lid carved with arcaded panels in low relief and a defaced back panel with triangular head, and a cusped 14th-century tomb recess in the north wall of the north aisle.