Church Of St. Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene

This parish church stands in Chulmleigh. The fabric appears to date from the late 15th century onwards, with few alterations until the restoration of 1878-9 by Ashworth. The building is constructed from unrendered stone rubble with ashlar dressings, while the west tower is built of dressed stone with granite dressings. The roof is slate with coped gable ends and apex crosses.

The plan comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, and a south porch. The exterior features an impressive west tower of four stages with setback buttresses and crocketted pinnacles at each set-off. The tower has an embattled parapet with large pinnacles surmounted by weathervanes. Each face has three-light pointed arched bell openings with slate louvres. The south side of the second stage has a two-light pointed arched granite window.

The west entrance is a fine granite doorway with a heavily moulded pointed arched surround, quatrefoil and mouchette traceried spandrels, and large decorative label stops to the hoodmould. The large four-light west window has a pointed arched granite surround; the mullions were replaced in the 19th century. Blind quatrefoil tracery fills the sill. A blocked west window serves the south aisle.

The south aisle has four principally 19th-century Perpendicular style three-light windows, two at the centre with human head corbels, and a similar three-light window at the east end. The south porch dates from the 15th century and features an embattled parapet, diagonal buttresses, blind quatrefoil traceried panels to the front, and a canopied niche above an ogee hollow-moulded doorway. The porch roof is 19th-century. Above the inner doorway stands a probably Norman square stone carved with a figure of the Crucifixus in a roundel. A small 19th-century priest's doorway with a shouldered head occupies the angle of the south aisle and chancel.

The south side of the chancel has a 19th-century two-light pointed arched window and a large Perpendicular style five-light east window with human head corbels. A 19th-century vestry on the north side has a polygonal chimney pot with a crenellated cap to the gable end stack. The north aisle has four 19th-century Perpendicular style three-light windows and a small 15th-century pointed arched north doorway with an ogee hollow-moulded surround and cushion stops.

The interior contains continuous north and south arcades of five bays with Pevsner 'A' type piers with capitals only to the main shafts. Original ceiled wagon roofs run throughout; the chancel panels are smaller than those in the nave and aisles, with carved bosses at the intersections of the ribs and angel figures bearing shields to the wallplates of the nave and chancel. A tall granite tower arch has Pevsner 'A' type imposts.

An impressive 16th-century screen, restored in 1914, spans the nave and aisles across fifteen bays in total, featuring standard Pevsner 'A' type tracery with original ribbed coving, tracery decoration between the ribs, cornices with three bands of close ornament, and cresting.

The 19th-century chancel fittings include a stone reredos, patterned tiled floor, and piscina in the north wall. Nave and chancel seating is 19th-century with coved bench ends. The pulpit dates to 1869 and was made by Fulford, featuring elaborate traceried panels to the polygonal drum and curved figures in canopied niches at the angles. A 19th-century font is present. A fine centrally placed wrought iron chandelier hangs in the church. A funerary helm, possibly late 16th-century, stands towards the east end of the north aisle.

The stained glass includes work by Hardman. The east windows of the chancel and aisles contain glass in memory of Reverend George Hole, who died in 1859. Glass on the south side of the south aisle commemorates John Adams Tidboald and his wife, Reverend Marsden Gilson (erected 1903), and Margaret Hanson, who died in 1917. The west window is not accessible.

Monuments in the south aisle include those to Reverend Webb, who died in 1767, and his wife; an early 18th-century Baroque monument to the children of Humphrey Bury Esquire, in high relief with an oval tablet flanked by angels, a large achievement, and cherubs' heads to the base; and monuments to Mary Stucley Palmer and Richard Stucley by Kendall of Exeter.