Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Atherington

A parish church of the 15th century with a 16th-century north aisle, substantially restored in the 1880s by J L Pearson. The building is constructed of stone rubble with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with crested ridge tiles and apex crosses to coped parapets.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, north aisle, south transept and porch. The tower rises in three stages with an embattled parapet and a polygonal stair turret on the south side, supported by short diagonal buttresses. The third stage has square-headed windows of two trefoil-headed lights on each face, with drip moulds and louvres. Two single trefoil-headed lights appear under continuous drip moulds to the east side, and a clock face occupies the second stage on the south side. The west window is Perpendicular in style with four lights and unusual tracery that is repeated in the four-light windows to the south transept end and chancel east end, and in three-light windows to the north side of the north chancel chapel. All windows have iron stanchions and saddle bars. The west tower doorway has a pointed arched hoodmould with fleuron decoration around the hollow moulded door surround.

The nave south side features a Perpendicular two-light square-headed window with dripmould. The south porch contains a 19th-century double chamfered pointed arched doorway, with a smaller Perpendicular inner door surround of single plain chamfer and 19th-century dripmould. The porch is notable for its fine waggon roof of seven ribs with half bosses to each end and full bosses to the moulded central rib at the intersections with transverse members. The ribs spring from crenellated wall plates decorated with carved foliage and plain shields. Between the porch and south transept, and on the south side of the chancel, are three-light Perpendicular windows with depressed pointed arched hoodmoulds flanking a priests door with hollow-with-cyma-reversa moulded surround and pointed arched hoodmould with clasping foliage to the returned ends.

The north aisle features a 3-light Perpendicular window to its east end. Its north doorway has a pointed arch with fleuron decoration to the hollow moulded surround, with two tall probably late 16th-century straight-headed transomed windows with four-centred arched lights to the left, and a three-light window in similar style but untransomed above the doorway. A Perpendicular three-light window appears to the right and at the west end of the north aisle.

Interior

Much of the 15th and 16th-century fabric survives. A tall unmoulded pointed tower arch opens to a nave arcade of four bays with depressed pointed arches supported on slender piers of Pevsner 'A' type with capitals only to the main shafts. The chancel arcade comprises two bays with plain moulded pointed arches, with a similar arch to the south transept. Fine waggon roofs survive throughout; those to the chancel and north aisle bear carved armorial devices. Variously carved bosses appear to every fourth moulded rib at the intersections of transverse members. Carved figures ornament the base of each moulded rib to the south transept roof. The chancel contains 19th-century pattern tiles and old misere choir seats to each side—six stalls to each side, with the two end seats returning to back onto the chancel screen. Two of the south side seats have foliated misericords.

The chancel-to-nave screen is a particularly fine survival, square-framed with four lights to each side of the central opening, featuring slender muntins crocketted above lipped capitals and pinnacled ogival heads with mouchette tracery. A crenellated wall plate surmounts the lights, with six panels to each side below displaying blind tracery. The aisle-to-chancel screen remarkably retains its loft and comprises four and a half bays, each of two lights with slender muntins bearing carved angel figures at springing level. These support richly carved ribbed coving with a cornice of three bands above. The lower stage has blind cusped tracery to the panels with foliated designs to the base. The loft, dated circa 1530-40, has four full canted niche canopies with richly carved cresting and pinnacled ogival heads. A sixth niche has been partly cut away beneath the end arcade arch. Four of the styles supporting the canopies have been removed, presumably when painted panels were introduced; these have now been reversed to face the gallery. Seven panels are arranged with two painted shields flanking a wide panel depicting the Royal Arms, two narrow panels to the left of a scripted panel, and a single narrow panel to the right end. The rear of the loft has twelve panels with blind tracery and vine leaf decoration to the top and bottom rails. Access to the loft is by a plain chamfered pointed arched doorway. The chancel-to-nave screen is said to have come from the chapel at Umberleigh House, though this attribution remains uncertain.

A fine set of seven pairs of poppy head bench ends ornament the front of the nave, carved and crocketted with interestingly varied blind Perpendicular tracery and retaining moulded back rails. Pews to the north aisle, rear of nave and base of tower, possibly 17th-century, are also complete. Along the north aisle and nave walls are delicately wrought iron candelabra—three to the north aisle and four to the nave.

A 15th-century font has an octagonal bowl and stem; the bowl is decorated with blind quatrefoil panels to each facet, four of which clasp plain shields. A 19th-century pulpit also survives.

Monuments and Fittings

The north chancel chapel contains a mid-13th-century knight monument, cross-legged with a band of foliage around the base, said to represent Sir William Champernowne of Umberleigh. A cluster of three chest tombs occupies the east chancel arcade. The raised tomb with blind quatrefoil tracery to the base bears two 14th-century figures—a male figure in armour and a female figure with square-cut head dress—said to represent Sir Ralph Willington, Knight (died 1349) and Lady Eleanor Mohun, his wife. An adjoining chest tomb on the north side has a damaged inscription to Sir Arthur Bassett and Eleanora his wife. A third tomb on the west side displays brasses of Sir John Bassett (died 1529) flanked by his two wives, with two groups of five children to the left and seven to the right, and four shield brasses to each corner (the top left is missing). On the south side of the plinth are two panels, each enclosing a quatrefoil containing the letters S.I.K.B. and a shield, impaled but blank. The west end has two large shields bearing Bassett arms.

A 17th-century wall monument on the south side of the chancel features medallions at the centre of each of its four sides, depicting an angel bust above and skull below, with an anchor to the left and hour glass to the right. An early 18th-century Classical wall monument on the west wall of the south transept comprises an urn flanked by foliage and supported by Ionic colonnettes, with a frieze bearing a central shield. An oval medallion with amorinos appears to each side at the top, with a damaged skull to the base below a plank tablet with scrolled surround. A marble wall tablet erected in 1832 over the south porch doorway commemorates the death of George Burgess, Rector (died 1829) and four of his children in 1816 from "malignant fever then raging in the parish".

The east chancel window contains stained glass by Clayton and Bell. The window to the north side of the north chancel chapel contains much medieval glass, reworked in 1883 also by Clayton and Bell to depict the Coronation of the Virgin.