Parish Church Of St Mary

Parish Church of St Mary

This is a parish church at Kentisbeare. The tower and chancel date to the late 14th or early 15th century, while the nave possibly incorporates earlier work. The south aisle was added by John Whityng, who died in 1529. A vestry was added in the 19th century.

The church is built from a great variety of different stones. Beer stone and a rare cinnamon-coloured red sandstone quarried near Cullompton are used to form a chequer pattern on the north side of the tower. Otherwise the building is mostly constructed from coursed or random rubble sandstone with some volcanic trap and Beer stone. The 19th-century work uses limestone, and the vestry is built of flint. The roofs are of dry slate.

The plan consists of a west tower, nave, west porch, chancel, and south aisle extending to both nave and chancel, with a vestry added at the west end of the south aisle.

Exterior features include a tall battlemented tower of two stages with a plinth. The north side is the show front, with a battlemented polygonal stair turret and set-back buttresses decorated in a chequer pattern. The tower has two-light belfry openings, a Perpendicular three-light window, and a contemporary west doorway. The nave wall on the north side is notable for lacking a plinth and having masonry laid differently, suggesting it may be earlier than the rest. Two late 15th or early 16th-century three-light Perpendicular windows light the nave. The porch dates to the 15th century and features a ceiled wagon roof with canopied niches above both inner and outer doorways, the former being more elaborate. The chancel has smaller Perpendicular windows than the nave, much of which has been renewed. The south side displays a good set of early 16th-century windows, with the example to the south aisle east being almost intact, the others restored. A stair turret to the rood loft and aisle roof is present. The vestry is a pretty late 19th-century addition with its roof aligned north-south.

Interior features include the absence of a chancel arch and a five-bay arcade. The piers have crisp, high-quality foliated capitals, though those to the west piers are of coarse workmanship, with wavy mouldings to the piers. The pier flanking the Whityng chapel to the south of the chancel is adorned with John Whityng's coat of arms and the symbols of his trade. The tower arch has a panelled intrados. A ceiled wagon roof runs throughout the medieval parts, except above the Whityng chapel which is 19th century. The south aisle is embellished with shield-bearing angels at wall plate level.

The rood screen is a ten-bay example and is considered one of the finest in the country, with flamboyant elements and a great variety of design and detailing—each bay is different. Bligh Bond considered it to be the prototype of the 'Exe-Valley' class of screens. It displays the arms of John Whityng. A four-bay parclose of different design and less well preserved stands nearby. The font is hexagonal stone and probably dates to the 15th century. A piscina in the Whityng chapel dates to the early 16th century. Sixteenth-century panelling on the east wall of the Whityng chapel is believed to have been brought from Bradfield House. A 17th-century bellringing chamber floor is present. A fine gallery at the west end is dated 1632, with a cornice and rail presumably added in the late 18th or early 19th century when the gallery was re-seated. The pulpit appears to have once been dated 1736 and is signed by Isaac Bonifant. Eighteenth-century charity boards are displayed. The nave benches and chancel stalls are 19th century, and a reredos dates to 1881.

Monuments include, in chronological order: a tomb chest of John Whityng in the Whityng chapel, constructed of Beer stone with a polyplant slab, though the brasses are largely missing (they are illustrated in Hamilton Rogers's Sepulchral Effigies of Devonshire); a tomb chest of Lady Buildford, who died in 1558, also in the Whityng chapel, with a memorial inscription brass set into the 16th-century panelling along the east wall; two wall monuments commemorating charities—one to William Evelyn, who died in 1671, on the north wall of the nave, and one to Edmund Crosse (not dated but 17th century), both of stone with architrave; and a wall monument to Rev. J. W. Scott, who died in 1820, on the chancel south wall. This last is a good cosmopolitan piece, not signed, commemorating Sir Walter Scott's nephew, with the inscription placed on a scroll hanging over an obliquely-set sarcophagus revealed by a life-sized naked child—all in marble.

The glass includes medieval fragments in the south aisle east window. The east window and possibly others in the chancel were made by Clayton and Bell in 1882.