Church Of St Bartholomew

Church of St Bartholomew is a parish church with Norman-Transitional origins. The nave was rebuilt in the late 14th century with a new west tower. A north aisle and south porch were added in the 15th century. The chancel was completely rebuilt and the church generally renovated in 1889-90 by R M Fulford, with carpentry and joinery by Harry Hems.

The west tower is roughcast with granite coping. Original volcanic stone detail and restoration work use Beerstone and Hatherleigh stone. The nave is built of volcanic stone and local mudstone rubble with volcanic stone and restoration Hatherleigh stone detail. The north aisle is of coursed red conglomerate stone with granite dressings and volcanic stone detail, restored with Hatherleigh stone. The chancel is of neatly snecked Hatherleigh stone with details of the same stone. The roofs are slate with red crested ridge tiles.

The building comprises a nave with narrower and lower chancel, west tower and south porch, in various Gothic styles. The unbuttressed west tower has an embattled parapet. A stair turret projects square from the north side and rises above the tower parapet with its own embattled parapet, surmounted by a 19th-century wrought iron weather vane. Each side has Beerstone two-light belfry windows with cinquefoil-headed lights, probably restored. The west side has a moulded surround and hood containing a 19th-century plank door with unusual, somewhat fish-shaped, strap hinges. Above the door is a decorated two-light arch-headed window in which the jambs, mullion and hood are restored but the tracery is original. The south side of the tower has a small original round-headed window to the ringing floor set below the drip course.

The nave projects slightly on the south side from the tower. Either side of the porch is an arch-headed two-light decorated window similar to that in the tower; the left is largely original and the right is a complete replacement. At the right (east) end is a Transitional style window comprising a pair of lancet lights. It is almost a complete rebuild but incorporates three pieces of weathered volcanic stone (two in the head) from the original.

The 15th-century south porch is gabled with volcanic kneelers and granite coping and contains a plain round-headed outer arch below a presumably 19th-century nowy-headed slate sundial with brass arm. The gable apexes of the porch, nave, aisle and chancel have 19th-century fleuree crosses.

The 19th-century chancel has a blind full-height pointed arch for a vestry which was never built, and to the right (east) a three-light Decorated-style window immediately above a moulded drip course. The east end of the chancel is flanked by diagonal buttresses and that to the left (south-east) includes a foundation stone dated 1889. The east window is a large arch-headed three-light Decorated-style window, a larger version of that on the south side. The drip course rises in the centre to the sill of the window and there is another above the window with a ventilator over. The gable has shaped kneelers and coping.

The east end of the north aisle has original granite kneelers and coping but the three-light Perpendicular window is a 19th-century Hatherleigh stone replacement. The north side is a three-window front with flanking diagonal and intermediate buttresses. The central window is a Decorated-style three-light replacement with original granite sill and almost round-arched hoodmould. It is flanked by Perpendicular windows, a completely 19th-century three-light replacement to the left and a little-restored volcanic stone two-light original to the right. The west end contains a 19th-century three-light Decorated-style window although the sill, moulded jambs and almost round-headed hood are original granite.

The interior is of good quality. The south porch has a 15th-century open two-bay wagon roof with moulded ribs and wall plate and simple bosses. The floor is stone. The 15th-century south doorway of volcanic stone and sandstone ashlar is an almost round-headed arch with chamfered surround and pyramid stops. It contains a 19th-century plank door on wrought iron strap hinges with repoussé enrichment. Above it are the remains of a round-headed hood thought to be Norman or Transitional, and above that is set a sandstone corbel carved as a knight's head, also Norman in character.

The 14th-century tall tower arch is of volcanic stone with chamfered surround. The 14th-century chancel arch of granite is almost round-headed and has a double hollow-chamfered arch ring and semi-octagonal responds with plain soffit-moulded imposts. The five-bay granite arcade, the fifth overlapping the chancel, has moulded piers (Pevsner's Cornish Type A) and plain moulded caps and bases to shafts only. This 15th-century arcade is not fully joined to the respond column of the chancel arch.

Both nave and aisle have 15th-century open wagon roofs but they are not identical. The nave has an eight-bay roof similar to that in the south porch. It has moulded ribs and wall plate, mostly original foliate bosses, and the unusual feature of carrying the main trusses through the wall plate and rounding off the bottoms to give the impression of corbels. The eleven-bay open wagon roof of the aisle is of higher quality with moulded ribs and a continuous wall plate carved as a fruiting vine and with a crenellated top. The original wall plate survives only on the north side.

The chancel roof of 1899 by Hems is a boarded wagon roof of four bays with a moulded wall plate enriched with carved fernleaf and crenellated top, cusped diagonal braces and carved bosses. The blind arch to the never-built vestry has a double-chamfered arch ring. The nave and aisle window embrasures have exposed masonry reveals but only few have original hollow chamfered inner arches which die into the jambs.

The tower has the 14th-century volcanic two-centred arch to the stair turret and it contains a medieval studded plank door. The north wall of the aisle includes a pair of volcanic stone soffit-moulded image brackets which may well have been reset in the 19th century.

The chancel has a Gothic-style carved oak reredos of 1889 with contemporary credence to right. The 18th-century oak altar rail has alternate turned and twisted baluster supports; surely too late in style to be those paid for in 1680 and recorded in the churchwarden's account. There are 19th-century Gothic-style oak choir stalls. The 19th-century chancel floor includes patterns of encaustic tiles.

The good, little-restored 15th-century Perpendicular oak rood screen has five bays with a central doorway. The wainscotting has applied cusped and ogee-headed tracery with quatrefoils in circles at the bottom; this is missing to the right of the doorway. The square-headed four-light windows have Perpendicular tracery on slender mullions and the head has a delicately-carved band of flowing vines.

The north aisle screen, probably slightly later, is of four and a half bays. It is basically similar but the wainscotting has linenfold panelling, the window tracery is less elaborate and the cornice of fruiting vine is of higher quality craftsmanship. Neither door survives. The whole screen is brightly painted with gloss paint in 1984, the design said to be based on traces of the 16th-century decorative scheme. The unpainted rear is plain and unembellished.

The 15th-century Perpendicular oak parclose is a light and simpler version of the north aisle screen, and is much-restored. The nave and aisle have 19th-century parquet and the floor and fielded panel oak wainscotting made up from 18th-century pews.

The 18th-century oak pulpit has fielded panel sides and panelled pilasters to an octagonal drum. There is a 19th-century brass lecturn and 19th-century oak benches.

The 14th-century Decorated Beerstone font, although its carving was probably recut in the 19th century, has a circular plinth, octagonal stem with cinquefoil-headed arcade and octagonal bowl. The rim is decorated with small, shallow rectangular pellets with inscribed crosses between and the edges with cusped quatrefoils in panels above cusped canopy of carved acorns.

The aisle has a 17th-century oak chest with panelled sides, probably the one bought in 1634 according to the churchwarden's accounts. There are two simple marble mural plaques, one in memory of William Packer (died 1856) in the nave, and another in memory of Samuel Wreford (died 1859) and his family in the aisle.

There is a ring of four 18th-century bells, one by Penningtons of Exeter (1765), the others by Bibbies of Cullompton (all 1754). There are three Beare and Driffield stained glass windows; at the west end of the north aisle in memory of John Kelland (died 1868), the east end of the north aisle in memory of James Lee Sanders (died 1874) and the west end of the nave in memory of Robert Kelland (died 1862); the last two are signed R M Driffield.

Local tradition claims that the church was built by Sir William de Tracey as an act of penance for his part in the murder of Thomas-à-Becket and that the stone head outside the south door is his likeness.