Church Of St Stephen

The Church of St Stephen is a parish church located on St Stephen's Hill in Launceston, originally part of a larger collegiate church associated with an Augustinian Priory founded in 940 AD. The Priory later moved to St Thomas, and this church building was consecrated in 1259, with extensions in 1419 and the 16th century, followed by a restoration in 1883 by Hine and Odgers.

The church is constructed primarily of granite ashlar, with slatestone rubble and granite or greenstone dressings. The west end and the south aisle up to the porch are of granite ashlar, while the tower features three stages with setback buttresses, strings dividing the stages, and an embattled parapet with crocketted corner pinnacles. A low-pitched roof is concealed by the embattled parapets. The church plan encompasses a four-bay nave, chancel, a 16th-century west tower, a shallow south transept, a two-storey porch, and a north chancel chapel.

The exterior features 15th-century Perpendicular traceried windows, predominantly with five lights and hoodmoulds, along the north wall. The east wall of the chancel has two blocked doorways or windows containing niches and carved Norman volcanic stone statues, likely depicting a seated Saviour and the Virgin and Child, potentially from an Adoration of the Magi. The tower has a five-light window above a two-centred arched doorway with a stone hoodmould, a 17th-century studded oak door with angled random planks, a clock face on the second stage, and a three-light window on each side of the upper stage. The porch includes a four-centred arched doorway and an inner doorway with an original 15th or 16th-century studded door. 19th-century windows are set in a Perpendicular style on the south aisle.

Inside, the walls are skimmed, revealing a four-bay Polyphant stone arcade with square piers featuring demi shafts and two-centred arches. Further east, towards the rood, is a more complex series of moulded piers in the south transept, alongside a late 19th-century greenstone arch to the north aisle. The interior also possesses a late 19th-century oak roof structure with squat, four-centred arched, moulded tie-beam trusses, a trefoil-headed arcade above, and moulded wall plates and purlins. Visible within the chancel are Norman arches near the 13th-century rear arches to the north and south walls. A medieval holy water stoup is located in the porch.

The church contains a round Norman font of volcanic stone with a cabled cornice to the round shaft, moulded rings to the square base, and a cinquefoil-headed aumbry niche within the south wall of the chancel. There is also an 18th-century holy water stoup in the porch, a medieval stone coffin at the west end, a late 19th-century rood screen, and late 19th-century pitch-pine pews with carved oak ends, including three 16th-century bench ends with quatrefoils. An elaborate late 19th-century pulpit is also present.

Monumental inscriptions include a slate slab set into the north wall dedicated to Digory Prior, who died in 1631, featuring a guilloche border and coat of arms. A monument to John Briers of Colacott, Werrington Parish, who died in 1615, is set into the north wall of the chancel, with Corinthian end pilasters and a scrolled pediment. Another monument in the south transept, dated 1667, bears a largely intact ornate inscription. Finally, a marble aedicule on the south wall of the aisle commemorates John Tripp, 1792-1864.