Church Of The Immaculate Conception

BARNSTAPLE

684-1/5/227 SUMMERLAND STREET 31-DEC-73 BARNSTAPLE (West side) CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

II

Roman Catholic church; disused. 1844; opened 1855; probably by Gideon Boyce of Tiverton and completed by R.D. Gould of Barnstaple. Funded by Sir Bourchier Palk Wrey of Tawstock Court; contractor, Norman. Random rubble with ashlar dressings; slate roof with coped gables; cast-iron rainwater goods. Romanesque style. Once part of a complex including a priest's house (demolished). Aisleless church with apsidal chancel and 3-bay nave. EXTERIOR: round-headed windows with moulded architraves and cushion capitals to the shafts; moulded string at cill level. Bays defined externally as recessed panels with pilaster buttresses and corbelled dentil cornice. Apse has similar surface treatment but with chalice and other carved symbols in the cornice and a single window to each facet (windows blocked at time of survey); nave windows arranged as one triplet to each bay. W end has a coped gable with a toothed string parallel to the verges. Wheel window and 2 tall blind statue niches with engaged shafts and cushion capitals; gabled porch with segmental-headed doorway with decayed tooth moulding; 2-leaf door with diagonal boards and ornamental strap hinges. INTERIOR: Simple arched-brace roof springing from scalloped corbels. Semicircular chancel arch springs from carved shafts, the arch with 3 orders of moulding; plaster-vaulted chancel springing from attached shafts; coloured floor tiles to chancel. Simple Romanesque font with circular stem and scalloped shaft. Late Cl9 Romanesque circular pulpit with semicircular niches with symbols of the Evangelists on the drum on a polychromatic marble stem. Timber W gallery on timber posts with Romanesque capitals. NOTE: The church was probably designed by Gideon Boyce of Tiverton. According to 'The Tablet' in 1846 Boyce was named as the architect, but when the church was opened in 1855 'The North Devon Journal' referred to "the late Mr Pugin" as having been the architect, and the architect R.D. Gould as having been responsible for its completion. SOURCES: [1] Buildings of England: Pevsner N. & Cherry B.: Devon: PP.15I-2. [2] North Devon Journal, 1.11.55: Barnstaple. [3] The Tablet, 19.10.46).

Listing NGR: SS5614632995