Church Of St George

Church of St George

Anglican parish church, formerly a dependency of Modbury Priory, situated on Church Lane in Modbury. The church is mainly 18th century in its core structure, though it underwent refenestration in the 15th century. The spire, which dates to the 14th century, was struck by lightning in 1621 but was rebuilt in its original form.

The building is constructed of coursed rubble with granite dressings and slate roofs, topped with a stone spire. The plan consists of a nave, west tower and spire, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a south chantry chapel, a chancel with undercroft, and a two-storey south porch.

The square and lofty tower has a severe design, buttressed to three offsets but terminating at one-quarter height, with corresponding offsets in the west and north walls. The west face features a renewed four-light uncusped window without hood mould and small cusped single lights with louvres to each face of the ringing chamber. A small door appears on the north side, with a clock face to the east. The tall broach spire with small lucarne to each face rises directly from the tower without parapet or transitional feature.

The south side has a porch with battlements and an attached octagonal stair turret. The porch has a two-light window to a square head with dripmould over an arched opening with flush voussoirs to outer plank doors; the inner door has a moulded surround to a 19th-century door. A segmental pointed ribbed barrel roof covers the porch, which has no intermediate floor. To the right are three four-light Perpendicular windows, the easternmost brought lower than the others, divided by simple buttresses, with a corbel table to the eaves.

The transept has a four-light uncusped window set high with a thin hood mould. To the right is the wall of the chantry chapel with two four-light windows set high, uncusped except in spandrel openings. Battlements surmount a square buttress with two offsets to pinnacle bases (not carried above the parapet) and a diagonal corner buttress. A narrow door in a 16th-century basket-handle arch appears below a flat pointed arch above a horizontal dripmould. The east end of the chapel has a five-light uncusped window in a four-centred arch.

The south side of the chancel has a three-light uncusped window above a 19th-century two-light in a square stopped hood. The main east window is of 14th-century design with five cusped lights above a 16th-century two-light with square stopped hood. The north side of the chancel is plain, with a small embattled vestry and door. The north wall has two four-light uncusped windows, then a rood-stair turret under a swept-down roof in the corner to the transept, which has a three-light Perpendicular window. A priest's door with a basket-handle head and recessed mould appears between windows of the north chancel chapel, and to the right of the transept window is a richly carved 16th-century door surround with a Tudor head but with a Jacobean frieze and some egg-and-dart enrichment. Below the window is a projecting tomb recess with a quatrefoil light. To the right of the transept is a four-light uncusped window in a brought-forward wall section, then the north aisle wall with a four-light Perpendicular and four-light round-arched uncusped window, with two buttresses of two offsets. The west return has a blocked doorway between buttresses and a small segmental-headed 14th-century two-light adjacent to the tower.

Interior

The nave has three broad pointed bays with crude chamfered arches on plain square cavetto capitals to octagonal piers without bases. A plain bay before the tower has an attached pilaster to a double chamfered arch, the outer chamfer carried down to a pyramid stop, with the tower end raised three steps. A stone flag floor (some concrete) and ribbed barrel roof continue through the crossing bay.

The north aisle has a ribbed barrel roof of the same height as the nave, with the third bay setting out approximately one metre. The south aisle has a ribbed barrel roof slightly lower than the nave, with rere-arches to high-set windows and a plain wall beyond the arcade at the west end containing a 19th-century baptistery. At the east end is a moulded granite arch carried on a corbel respond on the south side.

The crossing has three arches with wave and hollow mould carried on trumpet capitals, decorated on the east side. The south transept opens to the aisle and east chapel, and has two early 14th-century tomb niches with double cusping; one contains a 15th-century alabaster effigy. The north transept has a vestry screen and organ, with a basket-handle arch door in the east wall. A very rich 14th-century tomb recess with damaged figures appears on the north wall.

The chancel has two bays with four-centred wave and hollow mould arches to four hollows and shafted columns with decorated capitals; plain walls to the sanctuary and a multi-ribbed barrel ceiling in 42 compartments. Both chantry chapels have ribbed barrel ceilings.

Fittings

A 19th-century font sits on eight colonnettes. The pulpit is made up from panels of a 15th-century screen on a tapered octagonal base. The reading desk is a very fine carved memorial to the First World War, with a simplified version of 1952 opposite it dedicated to Reuben Mears. A good Eagle lectern is also present. There is no glass of significance.

Monuments

In the transepts are two early 14th-century tomb niches. In the naves, high on the south side, is a coloured 1639 tablet with five children. Several tablets appear in the north aisle, the finest of 1690 to John de Train in classical design. Upright against the south wall of the south chantry is a monument to Philip Champernowne of 1684. A fine incised slab bears a signature, possibly OELIVIO.