Church Of St Barnabas

The Church of St Barnabas at Tigley is a chapel of ease for Dartington, built in 1885. The architect is unknown, though J L Pearson designed Dartington parish church in 1878–80. The building is constructed of snecked ashlar in pink-grey Devonian limestone with bathstone dressings. The interior is faced in bathstone ashlar with polished Devonian limestone arcade piers. The roof is steeply pitched Welsh slate with bathstone coping, bracketed kneelers to the gable ends which carry crosses at the gabled apexes, and crested ridge tiles.

The plan comprises a nave; a chancel divided into choir and sanctuary; a south aisle with a tower and spire over its east end and a porch on the west end of the south side of the aisle; a north porch on the north side of the west end of the nave; and an organ chamber on the north side of the choir. The design is in the Early English style, freely applied.

Exterior: The nave has two paired lancets on the north side with a large buttress with set-offs between. The gabled north porch has a high pointed arch with detached shafts; the arch has voussoirs alternately of limestone and bathstone. The west end of the nave has two tall lancets with a large buttress with set-offs between and an elongated quatrefoil light above. The chancel comprises a choir and sanctuary; the sanctuary is clearly defined by a lower roof with more decorative crested ridge tiles. It has narrow north and south lancets with unusual stops to the hoodmoulds. On the south side is a priest's doorway projecting in a steep gabled buttress-like aedicule with a trefoil-headed doorway with nail-head decoration to the hoodmould. The east window is formed from five stepped lancets under one hoodmould. The organ chamber on the north side of the choir has a two-light lancet in the gable end with an integral yellow brick stack to the right. To the right of the organ chamber is a wide niche with a double-chamfered two-centred arch. The south aisle has a two-light plate-traceried west window and an integral tower over its east end. The tower has a lancet in the tall lower stage and two-light bell-openings in the bell-stage with colonnettes and quatrefoil plate tracery. The tower is surmounted by a slender stone broach spire with two tiers of lucarnes and small brackets like crockets to the cornice. A large projecting stair turret on the south-east corner of the tower has a square-plan lower stage with lancets near the corners, and is octagonal above with an offset on the south side. The weathercock may be later. The gabled south porch is similar to the north porch but has two orders of dog-tooth decoration in the arch.

Interior: The interior is very fine and entirely intact. The nave has a three-bay south arcade with fairly squat pediment Devonian limestone piers, quatre-foil on plan with a waterholding moulding and moulded capitals with dog-tooth and nail-head decoration. The arches are high-pointed and double-chamfered, the outer moulding being a broad ovolo carried down into the responds at the east and west ends where the inner arch is supported on large corbels with stiff-leaf carved capitals. The choir and sanctuary arches are similar, but the respond corbels are Devonian limestone colonnettes with staff-lead capitals and a corbel below; the sanctuary arch has clustered colonnettes on corbel heads. The east window lancets have nook-shafts with moulded capitals and roll-moulded arches. All windows are deeply splayed with chamfered two-centred rear arches. The tower arch at the west end of the south aisle has a high-pointed double roll moulding carried on respond shafts with moulded capitals and corbelled bases; the north corbel is integral with the capital of the arcade pier. A narrow high-pointed arch doorway to the tower stairs is in the splayed south-east corner of the tower. The organ chamber is open to the choir but has a cusped doorway through the sanctuary arch pier. From this pier across the organ chamber is a diagonal stone two-centred arch; in the corner of the organ chamber is a small stone fireplace. Opposite the organ chamber doorway is the priest's door through the north pier of the sanctuary arch. The sedilia and piscina are cut into the sills of the south wall of the sanctuary. The choir stalls are set onto stone benches on either side of the choir. Continuous stone benches run around all sides of the nave and south aisle; at the east end of the north side of the nave is a stone pulpit incorporated into the benches, pierced with trefoil arches and standing on limestone shafts. Between the choir and nave is a low vestigial stone screen. The altar stone is polished limestone with five consecration crosses. The altar rail has wrought-iron stanchions. The choir stalls, which appear to be later, also have wrought-iron stanchions. The organ, which may be original, has decoratively painted pipes facing the choir and smaller pipes in a triangular-headed two-light opening facing the nave. The font is of polished Devonian limestone, octagonal on a squat stem with shafts. The portable benches are simple in design but well crafted and are probably original. The elaborate wooden eagle lectern is probably later. The choir and sanctuary have moulded common rafter roofs; the nave and south aisle have scissor-braced roof trusses with ovolo mouldings. The roofs are original. The north and south doors are original and have cross-shaped strap hinges and locks and latches in wrought iron. The priest's door is twentieth-century.

Stained glass: The east window is probably circa 1885–6 by Hardman. The north aisle memorial window is dated 1880 and the west window in the north aisle is dated 1873, both by Clayton and Bell. A memorial window of the west end of the nave is dated 1915, with stained glass in the quatrefoil above. The other windows have plate glass without subject matter.

According to White's Directory of 1850, "A small church as chapel of ease is about to be erected at Tigley Cross for the accommodation of that neighbourhood". White's Directory of 1890 states the church was consecrated in 1855, apparently unaware that the church had been entirely rebuilt on an ambitious scale in 1885.