Chapel Of St Antony

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 27/01/2012

SX 99 NW 3/64

UPTON PYNE COWLEY Chapel of St Antony

(Formerly listed as St Leonard's Chapel)

II

Chapel of Ease. 1867-8. Designed by Rhode Hawkins, financed by William Gibbs and built on land donated by the daughters of Joseph Sheppard of Cowley House. Local grey limestone with sandstone dressing. Slate roofs throughout. Nave, N porch, chancel, SE vestry and a single-bay alcove to S side of nave, bellcote above chancel arch. W front with 2, tall, trefoil-headed lancets under hood-moulds and carved-head terminals. E window of 3 broad, trefoil-headed lights under a large sextafoil; to the N (road) side, paired or single, trefoil-headed lancets; the S side is similarly treated but includes its lean-to vestry and nave alcove with paired and single lancets. There are no buttresses, and the side windows are flush. Quirky external features are a single, short column rather like a chimney- pot perched on the W gable, and the bellcote with steeply pitched stone pyramidal cap carved on four stubby shafts with foliated capitals. This feature extends down and into the church. The interior is well designed. There is an impressive roof to nave and chancel with wall-plate, exposed rafters with studs and braced collars set very close together with no bay divisions and clearly influenced by Butterfield. The south-east corner of the nave is enlivened by a shallow recess under a double-chamfered arch, and between this and the S respond of the chancel arch is the stone pulpit bowed out into the nave and pierced with chunky, cinquefoil-headed arches and entered from the vestry through a plain, pointed arch. Largely contemporary fittings. The E window glass - also of the same date and part of an overall glazing scheme which has been partly removed - is of high quality: Christ in Majesty fills the sextafoil, 2 Evangelists stand in the side lights with 'Suffer Little Children' in the centre. There are good contemporary wrought-iron gates to the porch. The roofs, together with the sequence of alcove, pulpit and chancel arch, combine to form a design of considerable merit and individuality. Of the small number of churches by Rhode Hawkins - some in London - only this and St Michael's, Exeter, survive. The chapel stands in a commanding position high above the main Barnstaple road.

Listing NGR: SX9056995687