Church Of St Bartholomew

Church of St Bartholomew

This is a parish church of 13th-century origin, greatly enlarged and altered in the 15th and early 16th centuries. A 'Golgotha' chapel was added for Sir Richard Reynell in 1633. The building was restored in 1884-5 by R M Fulford of Exeter. It is constructed of stone with slate roofs.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, north aisle running the full length of the nave and chancel, a south transept with the Golgotha chapel abutting it on the east, a west tower, and a south porch. A 20th-century boiler house stands on the north side.

The nave features Perpendicular windows either side of the porch, each of 2 lights with ogee cinquefoil heads (heavily restored). The transept has similar windows in the west, south and east walls (the east window concealed by Golgotha), except that lights in the west window have 2-centred heads. The Golgotha chapel's south window is probably late 19th-century 'Tudor' work, with reset 17th-century coloured glass, but above it sits a small rectangular plaque containing a mutilated urn. An ornate late 19th-century doorway with trefoiled head stands in the east wall, and the east window of the chancel is late 19th-century Perpendicular.

The north aisle has 4 windows in the north wall and one in each end wall. All are straight-headed with 3 almost segmental-headed lights with carved spandrels; hood-moulds have square carved terminals. Restored buttresses stand at each corner and between windows, except where a canted stair turret formerly serving the rood loft is located. To the right of the turret is a blocked doorway, mostly concealed by the boiler house, having a mutilated arch with a rosette in the spandrel. A corbel-table runs under the roof eaves.

The tower is 2-staged and plain, narrowing slightly in its upper stage. A string course runs above each stage and battlements crown the top. A 5-sided stair turret against the south face has 6 tiny windows: 2 with trefoiled heads, 3 shaped as quatrefoils and 1 as a cross. The west face of the tower has a Perpendicular window with 3 cinquefoil-headed lights in the lower stage. Above it, and in a matching position on the east face, is a similar single-light window breaking the line of the string course. Similar windows appear in each face of the belfry: 2 lights to east and west, 1 light to north and south.

The porch is mainly late 19th-century but contains fragments of an older wagon-roof. In its west wall is a small rectangular chamfered fireplace with a short flue to the outer face of the wall. The inner doorway is 2-centred with double-ogee moulding.

Interior

An arcade of 4 almost rounded arches divides the nave and chancel from the north aisle. The piers are unusual, cross-shaped in section, with small attached columns in the inner angles of the cross and larger columns attached to the end of each arm. They have moulded bases and capitals of several different designs, including the arms of the Holbeam and Reynell families, mythical beasts, floral and other motifs.

The chancel contains an Early English slit window in the south wall and a piscina with a plain 4-centred arch. The transept is entered through a large segmental arch on chamfered imposts; in its south wall is a piscina with a 2-centred arch and wave-moulding. The Golgotha chapel is entered through a large late 19th-century 2-centred arch; in the gable of its south wall is a tablet inscribed RR 1633.

The north aisle has upper and lower doorways to the former rood loft stair in its north wall. The upper doorway is chamfered with a 4-centred head, the lower doorway moulded with an almost rounded head. To the left of it is a blocked doorway with a segmental, hollow-moulded head. A piscina in the east wall has a 2-centred cinquefoil head.

The roofs are late 19th-century except for the north aisle, which has a 16th-century wagon roof with moulded ribs and carved bosses. The tower arch is plain and pointed; a 4-centred arch to the stair doorway is chamfered with pyramid-stops.

Fittings and Monuments

The church contains traceried wood rood-screens (repositioned) with traces of colour surviving across the nave. The centre doorway has a pair of windows, each of 3 ogee-headed cinquefoil lights, with plain panels below at each side. An enriched head-beam tops the screen. A reset early or mid 17th-century wood screen under the tower arch, possibly made up from unrelated fragments, is panelled with a balustrade above and has a pair of caryatids flanking the doorway.

An octagonal granite font has its bowl standing on a column with a moulded base. In the transept are 6 bench-ends (reset) carved with trefoil-headed panels.

A monument in the south wall of the transept bears initials RR and AR (probably Richard Reynell, died 1585, and his wife Agnes) and the Reynell arms. The tomb-chest has arcaded panels separated by fluted pilasters without capitals; above is a 4-centred arch flanked by caryatids, surmounted by a bracketed cornice and a variety of triangular pediment. In the east wall of the Golgotha chapel is a large red marble slab commemorating Sir Richard Reynell (died 1648).

At the east end of the north aisle are 2 floor slabs said to be tombstones of 2 abbots of Torre Abbey; a third lies at the east end of the chancel. Built into the external north-east and north-west angles of the north aisle are 2 halves of an early 6th-century tombstone inscribed CAOCI FILI/POPLICI (referenced in C.A.R. Redford's work in the Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society, 1969, pp 79-81).

An 1887 plan of the church by R M Fulford is held in the Golgotha chapel.