Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a church constructed between 1843 and 1845 by J.Hayward of Exeter. It is built of coursed squared red sandstone with white granite dressings, and has a slate roof. The church is in the Romanesque style with round-headed openings.

The tower is square, with four stages, and has shallow buttresses to the north-west corner, a cylindrical stair turret at the south-west corner, slender corner shafts above these, and bands marking all stages and the impost level of the top stage. It features a west doorway with set-in shafts, single-light windows to each side of the first three stages (except the south side of the first), louvred two-light belfry windows with central and set-in shafts with carved capitals, and a corbel table leading to a pyramidal lead roof with a finial.

The five-bay nave has granite lesenes and a Lombard frieze to each bay, a gabled porch to the fourth bay with a Norman-style doorway including set-in shafts and carved extrados, and single-light windows in the other bays. The west corner has a clasping pilaster, and the west gable wall has two similar windows, with a triple-light window above, featuring shafts with cushion capitals and a sill-band. The gables are coped, with a cross at the east end. The one-bay chancel is in a matching style and has a large triple-light east window. The five-bay south aisle is also in a matching style.

Inside, the walls are white-painted and unplastered, with splayed window embrasures. The five-bay aisle arcade is composed of cylindrical columns with scalloped capitals and chamfered semicircular arches. The semicircular chancel arch has slender set-in shafts and dog-tooth ornament. The tall tower arch has set-in shafts and a stilted semicircular head. The roof is arch-braced with collar trusses, supported by slender wallposts on large scalloped corbels. A very fine Norman font, dating to approximately 1100, is present. It is believed to be from the former chapel of St Derwa at Menadarva, and is characterized by interlaced inverted semicircles below two ropework bands round the bowl and incised zigzag around the rim.