Bickleigh Castle Chapel Including Walls To Enclosure To South And West

Bickleigh Castle Chapel, including walls to enclosure to south and west

This is a private chapel of exceptional historical significance, forming a rare group with Bickleigh Castle itself. The building fabric dates primarily to the 12th century, though significant alterations and restorations have occurred over subsequent centuries.

The chapel comprises a nave and chancel built from local volcanic rubble with volcanic stone dressings, under a thatched roof that is gabled at both the east and west ends. The entrance is positioned on the south side of the nave. The chancel roof dates to the 15th century, and the building underwent major restoration in 1929, followed by further substantial restoration in 1970 when the nave roof was replaced.

The chancel retains its original Romanesque windows: a very narrow round-headed 12th-century slit window on the east wall, deeply splayed to the interior, and a shorter, wider round-headed single-light 12th-century window on the south side. The nave contains windows of circa late 15th-century Perpendicular style, which may be contemporary with the chancel roof. The north side of the nave has a 3-light Perpendicular window with cinquefoil-headed lights and a square-headed hoodmould, along with a similar 2-light window on the west side; both of these were inserted in the 20th century. The narrow 12th-century south doorway features an outer and inner round-headed arch with a continuous hoodmould.

The west end of the nave contains a gallery, largely reconstructed in 1971 but retaining one roughly chamfered cross beam. This gallery may have originated as a fodder loft added during the period when the chapel was used as a cattle shed, a use it served prior to 1929.

The interior features whitewashed walls with exposed stone dressings and a stone floor. The chancel arch is formed by the junction of the nave and chancel roofs. The chancel retains its original 15th-century unceiled waggon roof, which displays moulded ribs and carved bosses. The nave roof, 1971 in date, is a utilitarian collar rafter structure with pegged trusses, copied from the previous roof design, which itself may have replaced a more elaborate late medieval roof.

The furnishings include a font with a splayed octagonal bowl displaying a brattished moulding, set on a plain octagonal stem (the stem and bowl are not necessarily contemporary). The chancel contains an ogee-arched aumbry with blind tracery. The narrow east window is filled with a stained glass design of a vine trail, while the south chancel window displays a Virgin and Child scene executed in the 14th-century manner. Other furnishings, brought into the chapel from elsewhere, comprise a probably 16th-century carved chest with panels of blind flamboyant tracery (now used as an altar), re-used bench ends including examples with poppyhead finials and carved arm rests, a 17th-century lectern with traces of ancient colour on its barleysugar stem, and 17th-century folding chairs. When the chapel floor was excavated in the 20th century, loose fragments of high-quality alabaster were discovered.

The masonry shows evidence of patching on the north side, and the ashlar north and south-west corners indicate rebuilding at some point. A plinth on the south side of the nave, which returns round the west end, suggests there may have been reconstruction of the south wall, although the date of this work is uncertain.

Cob and stone rubble walls form an enclosure to the south and west of the chapel and are important to its setting and group value. This chapel represents a rare surviving example of a circa 12th-century private chapel.