Church Of St Mary And St Giles

Church of St Mary and St Giles, Buckerell

This is a parish church with a cruciform plan indicating a 13th or 14th-century core. It was dedicated in 1319 according to local tradition. The building underwent significant alteration in the 15th century, and was restored in the 1830s and 1840s under the direction of the Reverend Edward Coleridge. Further reseating was carried out in 1906 by R.W. Sampson of Sidmouth. The exterior is rendered stone with slate roofs.

The plan consists of a chancel, nave, west tower, north and south transepts, and a south-east vestry. A date of 1838 marked on the south transept appears to refer to restoration work. The vestry, also dating to the late 1830s, is built to the south-east in a Gothic style with gabled ends to the east and south.

The chancel has buttresses to its east wall and retains a 3-light window of 19th or 20th-century Perpendicular tracery design with a hoodmould and carved label stops. A rainwater head is dated 1900. The north side has a probably 19th-century 2-light traceried window. On the south side, the chancel retains some 17th-century lead guttering decorated with vine motifs. The south-east vestry has a 2-light 19th-century Perpendicular window on the south side and a west door with a hollow-chamfered doorframe carved with a black letter inscription reading "Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness", paired with a 19th-century plank and stud door.

The nave has 2-light 19th-century Perpendicular windows with hoodmoulds and 1-light cusped windows in the west and east walls. At the west end, the north and south sides have 3-light 19th-century Perpendicular windows. The south transept gable carries a decayed inscription recording "This gable was built by subscription A.D. 1838. Edwin E. Coleridge, Vicar".

The west tower is unbuttressed and three stages high with a crenellated top and external steps on the north side. The west door has a moulded frame with an inscription dating to the 1830s or 1840s reading "This is the gate of the Lord of Righteous shall enter into it", and is fitted with a 19th-century plank and stud door. The tower has a 2-light 19th-century Perpendicular west window with carved label stops. The belfry stage has 2-light cusped openings on all four faces. Below the belfry stage is a square-headed opening on the west face and a 1-light cusped window on the south face.

Interior

The walls are plastered throughout. A probably 19th-century chancel arch springs into the walls with two orders of 19th-century texts above it. Plain segmental arches open into the transepts. The nave has a late 15th or 16th-century ceiled wagon roof with shallow carved bosses. The transepts have plastered ceilings with thin moulded ribs running along their axes. The chancel probably has a 20th-century boarded wagon roof.

The chancel is fitted with a 19th-century piscina and aumbry, and a late 19th-century timber and brass communion rail. A 17th-century style reredos features a frieze of round-headed timber arches. Late 19th-century choir stalls stand in the chancel. A 4-bay chancel screen of Perpendicular design, said to have been brought into the church from elsewhere in the 19th century, has medieval coving on both sides though its fenestration has been altered.

The nave contains probably late 18th or early 19th-century box pews with fielded panels. A pulpit and lectern of 1911 stand in the nave, alongside an early 19th-century Perpendicular-style font with an octagonal bowl decorated with tracery. A west gallery with a canted projection at its centre has been considerably repaired but retains some 17th-century brackets. The north transept is fitted with box pews, including a large family pew with a panelled dado.

Glass

The chancel retains fragments of an early 19th-century stained glass scheme reset on glass quarries, including a memorial window to Edward Coleridge on the north side and one to Eleanor Northcote (died 1848) on the south side. The north window of the north transept is by Warrington, probably dating to the late 1840s, with texts on the window jamb. The east windows of both transepts may also be by Warrington.

Monuments

The chancel floor contains a Purbeck marble ledger stone commemorating Mary Fry (died 1669). The chancel walls retain several early 19th-century marble plaques, two of which are signed by Knight of Exeter. The north transept contains a fine monument to Admiral Graves by John Bacon (1792), featuring a figure in relief within a roundel below an eagle, with a tall tapering back plate. Several early 19th-century wall tablets are distributed throughout the church. In the south transept is an unusual wall monument to Alfred Ford, vicar (died 1904), signed Keith and Co. London, comprising a brass panel with a brass inlay border set in a polished black frame with pink marble brackets and two angels holding a chalice.

On the south wall of the nave is a wall monument to Isabella Sedgewick (died 1767) with reeded jambs and brackets, crowned with an urn and flower festoon. A seating plan for intended arrangements in 1773 hangs in the tower. The plan does not show the south transept and is annotated by irritated parishioners complaining that alterations had been made to it following the faculty.