Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Ideford

A parish church comprising a west tower, nave, chancel, north aisle with lean-to vestry, and south-west porch. The church has a complex building history spanning from the 12th century to the late 20th century, with the most substantial changes occurring during major restorations in the 19th century.

The earliest surviving feature is a 12th-century granite tympanum with a bird and scroll-tailed dragon flanking a conventional foliage motif, now built into the south wall of the chancel above a two-light Perpendicular-style window. Beyond this tympanum, no architectural fabric predates the late 15th or early 16th century. The late 15th or early 16th-century west tower and three-bay north arcade are the principal surviving medieval elements, though the arcade design—a probable late Perpendicular regional type found also at Dunchideock and Exminster—suggests the arcade may have originally comprised only two bays, with a single bay serving the medieval chancel.

The nave was substantially rebuilt in 1850 by the architects Wightwick and Damont, known for their anti-High Church stance. This rebuilding coincided with the incumbency of a "staunch Protestant" and resulted in an unecclesiological restoration unusual for a diocese noted for ecclesiological work. The walls of the nave and aisle were reconstructed with new windows, and a south porch was added. Evidence suggests a west gallery was also added or rebuilt at this time. In 1846, before the restoration, the nave consisted of only two bays, with a road screen (its ceilure survives) and fragments of stained glass documented by Davidson.

The original chancel and north chancel chapel were demolished and replaced in 1883 by the architect Dampier of Colchester, absorbed into the extended nave. The 1883 chancel is executed in a more correct Perpendicular style, with angle buttresses, a coped east gable, and a three-light Perpendicular-style east window with hoodmould and moulded architrave. The south side features two buttresses and two windows: a two-light Decorated-style window to the east and a two-light Perpendicular-style window with square head to the west. The north side has a lean-to vestry and organ chamber with a chamfered arched doorway in the east wall and two large 19th-century lancets on the north wall flanking a buttress.

Externally, the structure employs local stone rubble for the main walls, with the chancel constructed in snecked brecchia and sandstone. Tower dressings are granite, while 19th-century dressings are Bathstone. Slate roofs with crested ridge tiles cover the chancel.

The late 15th or early 16th-century west tower is unbuttressed with a battered profile and battlementing, heavily crocketed corner pinnacles with finials, and an internal south-west stair turret. The west face displays a plain chamfered moulded granite doorway with an 1886 oak door carved with "the work of a dwarf at Teignmouth named Austin" (per Creswell). A three-light square-headed west window with uncusped lights occupies the west face. The west, south, and north faces feature one-light rounded openings at bellringer's stage, and all four faces have two-light uncusped belfry windows. Slit stair windows occur on the south-east corner, and single gargoyles project below the battlementing on the north and south sides. The north side preserves a blocked ground-floor opening, probably a doorway to a former west gallery.

The 1850 nave porch, in the westernmost bay, is steeply gabled with buttresses, a coped gable, and a chamfered arched outer doorway (repaired in artificial stone). The inner doorway, of the same period, is ovolo-moulded and arched, with a contemporary plank door bearing large ornamental strap hinges. Two two-light Tudor-arched nave windows of 1850 with tracery exhibit a straight joint in the masonry between them. The north aisle has three similar windows of 1850 and a contemporary two-light square-headed west window with cusped lights.

The interior, apart from the nave and aisle roofs and the three-bay arcade, is predominantly 19th-century with some early 20th-century additions. Walls are plastered. The chancel arch, dating to 1883, is double-chamfered on responds with engaged shafts and moulded capitals; the tower arch is plain and tall. The arcade consists of three bays with double-chamfered rounded arches on octagonal columns with chamfered capitals, mirroring the regional type seen at Dunchideock and Exminster.

The nave roof is a ceiled waggon with moulded ribs and flat carved bosses. The ceilure, positioned in the middle bay, is exceptionally complete, its panels decorated with diagonal filigree carving and applied stars. This medieval ceilure is now located halfway down the nave, having remained in its original position after the 1883 chancel addition. The north aisle roof is unusual: flat with deeply chamfered cross beams, wallplates, and a central rib with carved bosses; it may date to the 17th century.

The 1883 chancel roof comprises three bays with arched braces, boarded behind, with principal rafters carried on wooden posts set upon moulded stone corbels. Surviving 1883 features include an aumbry on the north wall, altar rails, and 19th-century tiling. Carved choir stalls date to 1904, and the altar table to 1983. An open traceried pulpit on a stone base has tracery said to originate from the rood screen. The font has an octagonal bowl with quatrefoils on an arcaded octagonal stem, described by Pevsner as Perpendicular but possibly recut in 1897 (date marked on font cover). The nave benches are plain and of 1850. A reredos of 1924, relocated to the west end of the aisle, is carved with the four fathers of the Latin Church, the Annunciation, and the Nativity. Several old ledger stones serve as nave paving.

Windows include good east window glass, presumably erected in 1883, and several armorial windows, some containing late medieval glass restored in the 19th century. The tower window and west window of the aisle are by Drake of Exeter.

The medieval ceilure stands as a particularly important and distinctive feature of the church.