Church of St Petrock

Church of St Petrock

This medieval parish church, with fabric mostly from the 15th and 16th centuries, stands on the southeast side of the High Street in Exeter. It was substantially restored in 1881 by John Hayward, when a chancel was added and the building's orientation was changed. In the late 20th century, Caröe and Partners partitioned off the south parts and refitted them.

The church is built of red sandstone with freestone dressings and slate roofs. Its plan comprises a nave, chancel, northwest tower, and two outer south aisles. The Victorian reorientation of the 1880s was later reversed in the late 20th century, though traces of that period remain.

The north wall, fronting the High Street, displays a lofty three-bay nave with a northwest entrance under an ogee hood. East of this entrance are two blind semi-circular arches. The clerestory has three bays with three-light windows—renewed panel tracery in the side windows and flowing tracery in the central window—surmounted by an embattled parapet. A stone tablet records the opening of the building to view during street widening in 1905.

The square-based tower is unbuttressed and windowless in its lower section. The top is broached to turn the structure octagonal, with single square-headed traceried windows beneath an embattled limestone parapet. A small louvred turret from 1736 sits behind this. The south side of the building, facing Cathedral Yard, is of 19th-century construction and features a gabled chancel with a large five-light window of Perpendicular tracery. An entrance with a two-light window and traceried parapet is positioned to the left.

Internally, the building is now divided into two parts by a timber and glass screen. The north part, the original church comprising tower, nave and chancel, remains in religious use with its original east-west orientation. Between the nave and chancel is an arch (filled by a glass screen of 1985 designed by the Harrison Sutton Partnership) with a moulded head and responds. Its capitals are formed by large angel busts holding shields, a design detail repeated in the arcade piers and the pier supporting the southwest angle of the tower—an unusual design derived from the cathedral but with angels probably dating from the 1820s scheme. Over the chancel arch is a large five-light window. The nave is covered by a very shallow segmental plaster roof, probably from the 1820s. Over the south aisle is a large octagonal skylight of that period.

The principal fixtures include a series of wall monuments from the late 17th and 18th centuries, notably that to William (died 1683) and Mary (died 1658) Hooper. Within the tower is a notable relief of the Last Judgment by John Weston of Exeter, a fragment from a larger signed monument formerly in the demolished church of St Kerrian in Exeter. An 18th-century royal arms hangs north of the chancel arch. The font is a conventional octagonal piece with a traceried bowl, probably from the 15th century. At the east end of the chancel, three arches frame the Decalogue, Creed and Lord's Prayer, work probably dating from the 1820s. The walls carry 32 mid-Victorian polychromatic tile memorials. Stained glass by Beer of Exeter dates from the 1840s in the chancel, with work by Drake, also of Exeter, in the 19th-century chancel.

St Petrock's is the largest and most central of Exeter's surviving ancient parish churches, spanning the space between the High Street and Cathedral Yard. The original parish, covering little over two acres, was prosperous and supported a wealthy, influential congregation. In the Middle Ages the building was scarcely visible, hemmed in by houses and shops. Street widening in 1905 and damage from the 1942 Blitz opened up the site somewhat, though the east and west sides remain partially embedded in commercial premises. The church is possibly an ancient foundation, but documentary evidence only begins in the 12th century.

The structural history is unusual and complex. Originally aligned east-west along the High Street, the church probably consisted of a tower, nave and chancel. Enlargement was necessary, but the cramped site allowed expansion only to the south. A south aisle was added in the early 15th century and an outer one in 1573. Further extensions occurred south in 1587 and southwest in 1828, when architect Charles Hedgeland undertook a radical remodelling, providing the distinctive roofing with clerestory and skylight. Since the building became as wide as it was long, at his restoration in the 1880s John Hayward altered the liturgical orientation to a north-south alignment and added a large five-light window facing Cathedral Yard. The orientation returned to the original east-west alignment in the late 20th century, though remnants of tiling and wooden flooring reveal how seating once faced south during Hayward's scheme. John Hayward (1808–91) was a leading church architect in Devon during the mid-19th century, practising from the High Street in Exeter and designing the Royal Albert Museum, built in 1865–66.

The post-medieval part of the church, now entered from Cathedral Yard, provides premises for a charity serving the homeless and socially deprived. Much of this area is masked by late 20th-century mezzanine flooring and other wooden structures designed by Caröe, architects.