Parish Church of St John, The Evangelist

Parish Church of St John, The Evangelist

This is a substantial Victorian Gothic church built between 1862 and 1864, designed by Edward Ashworth. It stands on Withycombe Road in Exmouth, set back from the road on its south side.

The church is constructed of squared and coursed limestone with banded slate and brown clay tiled roofs. It follows a cruciform plan with a four-and-a-half-bay nave, lean-to aisles, a two-bay chancel, a south vestry, a north organ chamber, and a tower positioned over the south transept.

The exterior displays Geometric Decorated Gothic detailing typical of the 1860s, executed in robust grey stone with long steep roofs. The most prominent feature is the dominant tower over the south transept, which creates an asymmetrical accent and breaks the strong roof-lines. The tower comprises three stages with angle buttresses and a south-west stair-turret. It contains a four-light south window lighting the transept, a clock stage, paired belfry lights with louvres, and an embattled parapet. The aisles are buttressed at each bay and lit by low broad windows of three lights. The clerestory features foiled circles set in square frames, a design device also used by Ashworth at St Margaret, Topsham, Devon. A projecting south porch has a moulded entrance arch without columns or imposts. The west gable is notably high and impressive, displaying a five-light window with intersecting tracery.

The interior is spacious with high open roofs. The nave roof features arch-braced collar trusses rising from small hammerbeams, while the chancel roof is a ceiled vault with square panels intersected by subsidiary diagonal ribs. The nave arcades have moulded arches supported on polished marble piers with moulded capitals. The aisle roofs employ idiosyncratic Y-trusses, again matching the design used at St Margaret, Topsham. Around the crossing are large corbels carved with naturalistic foliage, birds and fruit. The walls are painted plaster and the floors are carpeted.

The principal fixtures include a low oak screen installed at the west end of the nave in 1964, featuring dalle-de-verre panels (chunks of glass set in resin or concrete) made by Dom Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey, Devon. The nave also contains a modernist oak altar with unusual Victorian Gothic wrought-iron supports, contemporary stalls and communion rails, and an oak pulpit of similar date. The font, dated 1864, has a heavy square bowl on four colonnettes with a hewn oak cover. A complete set of good quality pine benches with blind-traceried ends and fronts, probably original to the church, remains in place.

The stained glass includes an east window by Clayton & Bell dating to around 1872, and a small south aisle west window by Hardman from 1865. In the south transept chapel, the south window is by Morris & Company from 1919, a memorial to the Shaw family, depicting figures of Fortitude, Faith, Love and Endurance in silvery tones with violet and red accents. The south porch contains 20th century wrought-iron gates with leafy tracery.

The church was built to replace St John in the Wilderness, the mother church located approximately one and a half miles to the north-east and almost three miles from Exmouth's centre. By the 18th century, the older church was little used and parts had been demolished, with services transferred to St Michael, a chapel-of-ease in Exmouth. The land for St John the Evangelist was given around 1862 by John Wood of Withycombe, and the church was consecrated on 3 November 1864. The construction cost of approximately £5,000 was largely borne by Lady Rolle. The church was designed to seat 708 people. St Michael was demolished in 1865, and St John in the Wilderness was rebuilt between approximately 1926 and 1936 by architects Ralling & Tonar.

Edward Ashworth (1814–96) was articled to Robert Cornish of Exeter and subsequently studied under the London architect Charles Fowler. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1842 and practised in Auckland until January 1844, before returning to England in 1846. He established himself as a church architect practising in Exeter.