Parish Church Of St Martin

TORQUAY

SX96NW BARTON HILL ROAD, Barton 885-1/2/321 (West side) Parish Church of St Martin

II

Parish church. 1938 to the designs of NF Cachemaille Day. Plastered on brick footings; slate roofs. Neo-Romanesque style. PLAN: Nave with west end baptistry; chancel with 3-bay aisles and 2-bay south organ chamber; north-east tower; east end Lady Chapel. EXTERIOR: North side show front with no chancel/nave division. Projecting tower, rectangular on plan, adjoins chancel; lower-roofed Lady Chapel to east. Nave with parapet has 8 high-set round-headed aisle windows recessed behind a colonnade of columns supporting brick arches. Round-headed doorway to east of nave with recessed brick arch and original 2-leaf timber door with vertical roll mouldings which are repeated as glazing bars in the fanlight. 2-leaf door at west end of nave in lower-roofed west end baptistry block. 3-stage tower has 3 sets of triple round-headed windows on north side, the upper set louvred belfry windows. East return of tower decorated with massive relief sculpture of the Crucifixion. North side of Lady Chapel with ribbon of 5 round-headed windows divided by columns. East end of Lady Chapel breaks forward with one round-headed window. Blocked round-headed doorways in set-back bays to left and right. INTERIOR: Flat-roofed with no nave/chancel division. Aisle and organ chamber bays with brick columns, star-shaped on plan. Plain 3-bay arcade into baptistry, which is top-lit. Massive baldacchino to sanctuary with 4 round-headed arches and gabled roof on 4 columns with Byzantine capitals. Baldacchino gilded with reliefs of censing angels. Low, solid chancel screen, semicircular on plan. Wall between sanctuary and Lady Chapel pierced by 3 round-headed glazed arches. Pulpit, round on plan, projects out of north wall with access via concealed stairs. Torquay marble font. Lady Chapel has massive gilded corona lucis and abstract stained glass in east window. Baptistry stained glass of 1959. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1952-1989: P.850).

Listing NGR: SX9081666745