Church Of St Bartholomew

Church of St Bartholomew, Stoke Rivers

This parish church dates mainly from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, though earlier fabric may survive within it. The building retains some 18th-century work. Major restoration was carried out in the 1880s and in 1905 by Tamlin, with possible earlier restoration work in 1831. The church is constructed of stone rubble with stone dressings and slate roofs with coped gabled ends.

The building comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, south aisle and south porch.

The tower rises in three stages and is topped with an embattled parapet and stone gargoyles at each corner. A polygonal stair turret projects to the south side with two small traceried windows above five slits. A single angle buttress supports the north-east corner, whilst diagonal buttresses extend the full height at the south-west and north-west corners with offsets. The 19th-century bell-openings are pointed-arched with two trefoil-headed lights and quatrefoil tracery, the cusps clasping foliated centres. A similar two-light opening appears on the second stage to the south side, with a pointed arched hoodmould and label stops. Below this is a Perpendicular single cusped-headed niche. The west window contains three lights with a foliated emblem and human heads around the hollow moulded surround. The pointed arched west doorway has a double roll-moulded surround and retains a plank door with metal lock dated 1769 and handle dated 1883.

The south aisle features one two-light and two two-light straight-headed windows in Perpendicular style with four-centred arches to the lights. Diagonal buttresses flank each end, and two buttresses with offsets flank the right-hand window. The south porch has a plain carved bargeboard and a slate sundial by John Berry dated 1770 above a Perpendicular semi-circular headed doorway with cavetto and cyma recta moulded surround. The porch interior contains a plain plastered waggon roof with moulded timber wall plates and a similar round-arched inner door, though without the right-hand cyma recta moulding. Both the south porch door and the priests door towards the east end are 19th-century plank doors; the latter has a four-centred arch with hollow chamfered and ovolo-moulded surround. A 19th-century three-light east window to the south aisle has intersecting tracery and hoodmould. The chancel's east window contains three cinquefoil-headed lights in Perpendicular style tracery with hoodmould. Four buttresses support the north side of the chancel, flanking three straight-headed Perpendicular windows with three four-centred arched lights, though much stonework has been renewed.

Interior

The interior contains a pointed triple chamfered tower arch. The south arcade comprises four bays with Pevsner 'B' type piers and undecorated block capitals. Plain plastered basket-arched ceilings cover the south aisle, nave and chancel, possibly concealing earlier roof structures. Eighteenth-century dado panelling, two panels high, lines the nave and aisle walls. Medieval floor tiles survive in three groups: near the base of the tower arch, reset around the base of the font, and worn examples near the south door.

The stone font has a round stem and undecorated bowl with lead lining and a 16th-century cone cover, octagonal and moulded with ribs swept up to a crocketted finial. The pulpit has an octagonal drum with reused 16th-century bench ends on each exposed facet, three panels high to the sides and two large panels to the front, all richly carved with repeated designs. The stem has a reused scalloped capital. An altar table to the south side reuses 16th-century carved panelling with a tall carved male figure on the left side and a male figure surmounted by a female bust to the right. An apron rail between them bears carved inscriptions recording "Revd. C. Hiern Rector 1831" and "J & P Tamlyn Churchwardens". A 19th-century stone lectern has four crocketted supporting brackets and two-light tracery on each side with pointed trefoil heads. The east window contains stained glass dated 1889. A 17th-century chest in the south aisle is carved with lunettes above a three-panelled front. Painted Royal Arms appear on the aisle west wall.

Monuments

The south side of the aisle, from the east end, features a weathered inscription to an alabaster wall monument of 1661 with an oval medallion lozenge and roundels to side and base in a scrolling surround. Two 19th-century marble tablets commemorate the Tamlyn family, one recording a £200 bequest for the education of poor children. Two identical 19th-century marble wall monuments exist, one signed by J. Clarke of Exeter, to the Hiern family. On the north side of the nave from the east stands a late 18th-century pedimented marble tablet with oval medallion to the Hunt family, a wall monument to John Tamlyn (died 1816) with a square marble tablet below, a Latin inscription to Henry Parmienter dated 1791, and a high Victorian Gothic monument to John Hutton.