Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Rose Ash

Parish church, substantially rebuilt 1889-92 by the architects St Aubyn and Wadling for the Reverend Henry Grainger Southcomb. The surviving medieval elements are the tower, possibly 14th century, and the north aisle, dating to the 15th or early 16th century. The building is constructed of slatestone rubble with a slate roof featuring pierced 19th-century ridge tiles and freestone dressings throughout.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel (without external division), a four-bay north aisle with one bay extending to the chancel, a west tower, a south porch, and a north-east vestry. The architectural style is Perpendicular. In 1882 the Archdeacon of Barnstaple described the church as "perhaps the most dilapidated and most unsightly in its interior of all in the deanery". The extensive late 19th-century restoration and fittings were funded almost entirely by the Southcomb family, who served as rectors and mostly squarsons for 270 years until 1945.

Exterior

The chancel is constructed of snecked stone with a datestone of 1892 and the inscription "Laus Deo" on the east wall. The east window is a three-light late 19th-century Perpendicular design with traceried lights; two smaller two-light Perpendicular windows appear on the south side. The nave has two three-light late 19th-century Perpendicular traceried windows, positioned either side of the south porch. The late 19th-century porch features a double-chamfered outer doorway with a hood mould and a two-leaf 19th-century outer door with metal grille and ornamental strap hinges. The north aisle contains three square-headed north windows with Tudor-arched lights, and three-light Perpendicular windows to the west and east. The north-east vestry has a three-centred chamfered stone doorframe and a three-light west window with ogee-headed lights set in a square-headed frame; a chimney with an octagonal stone shaft rises from the north wall.

The two-stage battlemented west tower is difficult to date but possibly pre-Perpendicular, with diagonal buttresses to the west. Its west doorway has a crude rounded chamfered doorframe and a late 19th-century door with Art Nouveau strap hinges. The three-light west window contains renewed uncusped intersecting tracery; two-light traceried belfry openings appear on all four faces, with an unglazed slit window on the south face.

Interior

The porch interior has a 19th-century arch-braced roof and a floor of slates laid on end, with a 19th-century four-centred moulded inner doorframe and a two-leaf inner door dated 1935. The village stocks are stored in the porch. The church interior has plastered walls throughout except for the tower. A late 19th-century timber chancel arch rests on stone corbels; the tower arch is plain and rounded. The four-bay Perpendicular arcade features capitals on the pier shafts only. The north aisle has a late 19th-century unceiled wagon roof with carved bosses and moulded ribs.

The principal pre-19th-century fitting is the splendid screen of 1618 to the north aisle, accompanied by a matching parclose. The lower part of the screen consists of a plank-and-muntin dado with shallow carving and carved scroll stops below a rail carved with intersecting round-headed arches. Above runs a balustrade of bobbin-turned balusters flanking a round-headed doorway into the eastern end of the aisle. The parclose features a similar doorway into the chancel, both doorways crowned with pediments painted with the armorial bearings of James I, his wife Ann of Denmark, and Charles Stuart as Prince. The frieze carries a painted text from the Coverdale Bible. The letters IVIM also appear on the screen; W.H. Wilkin suggests these stand for "Johannis Venner in Memoriam" and that the screen commemorates the Reverend John Venner, who died in 1618.

The chancel contains a 20th-century stone reredos with blind tracery in a crested stone frame, and late 17th- or early 18th-century communion rails with alternating twisted and reeded balusters. Choir stalls with a memorial date of 1896 feature traceried frontals and carved bench ends. The nave has 1893 carved bench ends following the local 16th-century pattern, together with a contemporary tower screen. The open traceried timber drum pulpit dates to 1893. The font is likely also late 19th-century, comprising a square bowl on a scalloped base with a cylindrical stem.

Stained Glass

The chancel east window bears a memorial date of 1892 and is probably by Drake of Exeter. The south window is dated 1909 and is by Hardman.

Memorials

Two 17th-century slate memorials to members of the Southcomb family appear on the north wall. A late 19th-century brass commemorates James Schoolbred, died 1892. An unusual memorial in the aisle records John Davy as "14 years provincial grand mark master mason of Devonshire, d. A.D. 1887", marked "AL 5887" and signed by W.P. Cooper of Union Street, Plymouth. John Davy was the owner of Rose Ash House.