Little Theatre

TORQUAY

SX9263 ST MARK'S ROAD 885-1/18/233 (East side) 10/01/75 Little Theatre (Formerly Listed as: ST MARK'S ROAD Church of St Mark)

II*

Parish church converted to theatre. 1856-57 to the designs of A Salvin; chancel restored 1890-91 by Fulford, Tait and Harvey. Snecked local grey limestone rubble with sandstone dressings; slate roofs. Mostly Early English in style with some Geometric Decorated details. PLAN: Cruciform plan. Nave; chancel; lean-to aisles; crossing tower; north and south transepts. Interior altered for present use, with ticket office in west end, aisles screened off, auditorium in nave. EXTERIOR: Symmetrical west front, the nave buttressed, with a 3-light Geometric Decorated west window with nook shafts. Moulded 2-centred west door with nook shafts and 2-leaf boarded door with elaborate hinges flanked by vessicas containing relief carvings of symbols of the evangelists. Aisles have set-back buttresses and 2-light plate-traceried west windows. Buttressed aisles have 2-light windows with trefoil-headed lights below a roundel; trefoil-headed one-light clerestory windows, arranged in pairs. Shallow gabled porch on north side towards west with a moulded doorway with nook shafts. North transept has tall, traceried one-light windows with a roundel in the gable; octagonal turret in east of transept with pyramidal stone roof. 5-light east window with trefoil-headed lights. Short crossing tower (unrestored after a collapse of 1856) with clasping pilasters. Pyramidal roof and 5-light window to east face. INTERIOR: Conversion has largely obscured the ecclesiastical fittings. Arch-braced roof to nave with very fine carved corbel heads. Alabaster reredos by Hems; 1891 Art Nouveau tiled sanctuary dado by Powell & Sons noted in Pevsner. Important set of C19 stained glass windows including work by Hardman, Kempe, Burlison and Grylls and Clayton and Bell. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1952-1989: P.849).

Listing NGR: SX9255163076