Parish Church of St John the Baptist

This is one of Devon's larger medieval parish churches, with origins in the 12th century. The church underwent alterations in the 13th century, gained its porch in the 14th century, and was thoroughly remodelled in the early 15th century including the addition of the tower. A restoration was carried out in 1864 to the designs of Ewan Christian, and vestries were added between 1912 and 1914 to designs by W.D. Caröe.

The building is constructed of local red breccia and red sandstone rubble, with the vestries laid in snecked coursing. Dressings are of Beerstone and 19th-century Bathstone, and the roofs are slate-covered.

Plan and Structure

The church comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north and south four-bay aisles, north and south transepts, and south transeptal chapels positioned between the aisles and transepts. The northern chapel houses the Lady Chapel and the southern one contains the Kirkham chantry. A vestry stands on the south side of the chancel. Some 12th-century chancel masonry survives, along with the west door which was re-set in the 15th-century west tower. The chancel includes 13th-century windows, and evidence suggests that the arcades originated in the 13th century but were heightened in the 15th century.

Exterior

The chancel features setback buttresses and a massive five-light transomed traceried east window with hoodmould and carved label stops. The masonry is 19th-century, though part of the arch appears medieval. The north side of the chancel incorporates some local grey limestone rubble. Two three-light Perpendicular-style traceried north windows are accompanied by a three-centred moulded doorway with ballflower ornament and a probably 17th-century two-panel plank and stud door.

The north transept has an embattled parapet and setback buttresses. Its three-light Perpendicular-style traceried east window features a hoodmould and label stops. The north side of the transept is almost entirely filled by a massive pair of windows sharing a common mullion but with individual depressed segmental-arched heads. Each window is three-light and transomed with quatrefoils in the head. An octagonal embattled rood loft stair turret occupies the angle between the transept and aisle.

The north transeptal chapel has setback buttresses and a crow-stepped gable. It features four-light Perpendicular-style traceried east and west windows and a probably 20th-century five-light north window. The four-bay buttressed north aisle has an embattled parapet with a medieval Beerstone north-west pinnacle topped by a crocketed finial. Four-light Perpendicular-style traceried windows, one with Y tracery, display hoodmoulds and carved label stops. In the second bay from the west stands a red sandstone triple hollow-chamfered doorway with a probably 16th-century door of overlapping vertical panels, repaired at the bottom, featuring a variety of latches and a dog door. Adjacent to the doorway is a Beerstone ogival holy water stoup. Above the door sits a short four-light window with hoodmould and carved label stops. The west window of this aisle is awkwardly positioned behind the junction with the tower. The south aisle is similar, also with an awkwardly-positioned west window.

The tall three-stage west tower has an internal north-west stair turret and an embattled parapet with pinnacles. The west face displays a re-sited 12th-century doorway with alternating red and white stones and detached shafts with scalloped capitals. The round-headed arch has three orders of moulding: chevron, saltire crosses, and a bead. The door is 19th-century. An unusual four-light Perpendicular traceried west window features brattished horizontal stone bars in the head tracery. The west, north and south faces have three-light square-headed cusped belfry windows. The north and south faces display two-light traceried early 15th-century windows to the second stage.

The embattled south porch has diagonal buttresses and a 19th-century moulded red sandstone doorway. It contains a quadripartite rib vault springing from corbels decorated with carved feathers. The central carved boss, though very decayed, appears to depict the Ascension. A chamfered inner doorway with hoodmould leads through a probably 16th-century door of overlapping planks with strap hinges.

The Kirkham chantry has a crow-stepped gable, setback buttresses and a four-light Perpendicular traceried west window. Its renewed five-light south window features moulded capitals to the mullions. The south transept matches the north. The vestry has a coped parapet and, flanked by buttresses, a quirky moulded doorway with depressed shoulders, flat ballflower carving and a statue niche above. One-, two-, three- and five-light stone mullioned windows punctuate its walls. A carved inscription records that the vestry was erected by Adam Mortimor Singer to the memory of his wife.

Interior

The arcades have octagonal piers, double-chamfered arches and moulded capitals. A moulded chancel arch springs from octagonal responds with moulded capitals. The nave roof is a 19th-century open wagon; the chancel has a 19th-century boarded wagon roof with moulded ribs, carved bosses and 19th-century painted panels. The aisles have flat, panelled roofs with moulded ribs and carved bosses. The tower arch is double-chamfered, and the tower roof features a six-panel timber ceiling. The chancel includes an Early English two-light window in the south wall, concealed externally by the vestry.

Fittings

The fittings include the Chapin reredos, given in 1927, with eight stone statue niches and taller two-tier niches to left and right. Fine sedilia were reconstructed in 1870 using some old fragments, featuring four crocketed gables and cusped ogee arches with bright 20th-century painting. Moulded arches lead into the organ chamber and Lady Chapel on the north side. The organ was presented in 1889 by Paris Singer, with the organ case designed by M. Mowbray.

The Lady Chapel has a painted panelled ceiling and a very elaborate 1907 east window/reredos ensemble. The window has panelled reveals incorporating statue niches, and a three-bay reredos with figure groups carved in relief. The north transept contains an altar and reredos by Ninian Comper.

The 1906 rood screen is in a traditional Perpendicular local style, with a doorway featuring carved figures on the Kenton/North Bovey model, by Herbert Read of Exeter. Medieval doorways lead to the rood loft stair turret. A fine 15th-century stone wineglass-stem pulpit, similar to Harberton, features knobbly foliage carving and nodding ogee statue niches. It is partly re-coloured and retains traces of medieval paint. A red sandstone Norman font has a circular bowl with palmette ornament.

The spectacular late 15th-century chantry chapel—identified as the Kirkham family chantry of Blagdon—is the finest in Devon outside Exeter Cathedral. A deep stone screen with two Tudor arches contains tomb chests between a central doorway, the whole crowned with masses of pinnacles and carved angels. Recumbent effigies of a lady and knight lie on the chests. The arches and that of the central doorway feature miniature fan-vaulting. The figures are damaged, but the minor figures decorating the chests and the iconographic scenes are of high quality and retain some traces of medieval colour. The iconography is very elaborate and has been discussed in detail in an article by Rushforth. Inside the chapel stands a 17th-century tomb chest to Sir William and Lady Kirkham with two kneeling figures facing one another under flat arches.

Other monuments include a fine gisant in a cusped tomb recess in the south aisle and a foliated cross re-sited under a moulded tomb recess with carved spandrels in the north aisle. Various wall tablets include a slate monument with white marble pediment to Thomas Hunt of Yalberton and tablets to the Belfield family of Primley House.

The church contains a good collection of 19th- and early 20th-century stained glass including the west window of the north aisle, signed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, and other windows by Hardman and Clayton and Bell. A cope chest at the west end of the south aisle is made up of fragments of old wood, some probably Flemish, with blind tracery. The vestry contains an arcade of columns and a fine domestic piscina re-sited here in the early 20th century, which originated in Kirkham House but was mistakenly thought to have ecclesiastical origins.