Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

This parish church was dedicated in 1787 by James and George Templer Esq and Rev John Templer Esq, the vicar of Teigngrace. The Templers demolished the earlier church and rebuilt on the same site, reusing some granite as quoins. The building was restored in 1872.

The church is constructed of roughly dressed limestone and rubble with brick, and has slate roofs with black glazed ridge tiles. It comprises a west tower (now without spire), a symmetrical nave and chancel with equal north and south transepts, and an apse.

The west tower is Gothick in style with two stages, angle buttresses, and a pronounced batter with set-offs each surmounted by attached obelisks on cyma recta bases. The original six-panel flush west door has been partially glazed in two panels and retains its original surround of three clustered shafts with a moulded cornice, though it shows 20th-century softwood repairs. Above the doorway is a dedication stone on a rendered panel.

The north and south sides of the tower have 18th-century lunettes to the vestibule with crown glass leaded lights to the north. Above are Gothick 19th-century chamfered frames with diamond leaded glazing on the first floor, sitting under 18th-century dressed voussoirs. The west window is an unchamfered 18th-century Gothick frame with slated infill. Three large matching Gothick arched belfry louvres light the tower. An 18th-century local brick crenellated parapet oversails on brick block modillions.

Three large three-light Gothick timber windows with intersecting tracery light the church on the north and south sides. Each has an 18th-century six-paned bottom sliding sash with timber glazing bars and diamond leaded crown glass under ashlar voussoirs and stone sills. The gabled transepts feature round leaded lights in ashlar surrounds with original rose petal design. The apse has curved sides straightened at the end and features a smaller oculus in a dressed surround, above which is a brick crenellated parapet. A small west door in the north transept has an 18th-century roll-moulded architrave and a 19th-century door.

Interior

The entrance vestibule in the base of the tower retains some 18th-century joinery, panelling, a door, and coat pegs. Access to the floor above was probably originally by ladder, but was replaced by a 19th-century staircase when four octagonal elm posts with run-out stops were introduced to support the weight of a repositioned organ.

The church forms a single cruciform space with chaste Gothick ornament, comprising the nave and chancel with narrower south and north transepts. The north transept was probably the squires' pews with a separate entrance from the west. The sanctuary is raised two limestone steps and sits in a shallow flat-ended apse. High in the apse is a tiny round window before which is fixed a large early 19th-century copy by James Barry R.A. of a Vandyke Pieta.

At the west end of the nave is a deep gallery set back into the tower over the vestibule. The ceilings are plaster vaults, ovoid in section over the nave and chancel (with a ridge rib), becoming much steeper over the narrower transepts. At the crossing, groin ribs run up to a thick ring cornice with tiny outward-facing cherubim at the cardinal points around a diminutive four-centred dome. This dome is divided into segments by twelve ribs meeting at an acanthus chandelier boss.

An 18th-century Tudor-arched door from the vestibule to the nave has flush-panelled reveals and double doors with panels inset on the east face, covered with 19th-century studded red baize. To either side are slender clustered and banded columns with polychrome marbling, from which small plaster demi-fan vaults spring to support a balcony with a 19th-century ballustrade. The west and east walls answer each other with plain triple four-centred arcading of two blind arches and a central longer one over the gallery and apse, with a continuous cornice that ramps over the eastern oculus.

An important 18th-century organ by Davis of London is positioned at the east end. It was presumably originally set further forward, allowing a ringing chamber behind. The Gothick case is grained to simulate mahogany, cross-banded and picked out in gold, as are the show pipes, which feature several stages of blind arcading and a ramped cornice. The central canted pipe group is carried on a plume corbel and rises above the rest. The initials 'E.S.B.' are incised in serif letters on the north side. Although the manuals have been replaced, much early pipework remains.

An 18th-century or early 19th-century ladder leads to the belfry, which contains a construction of three oak timbers braced down to sill level by grown curved brackets. Two complete bells from the earlier church are hung in a 20th-century steel frame, one bearing the inscription 'John Gifford Warden 1701'. At roof level there is some evidence of a vanished octagonal steeple.

The floors have limestone paviours including re-set 17th-century ledger slabs. Eighteenth-century fittings include a hexagonal limestone font with a gadrooned bowl on a hexagonal limestone balluster stem and the box pew of the south transept. A fine series of mural tablets includes one to Charles Templer (died 1786) in polychrome marble with dolphins and a shipwreck scene; one to James Templer of Stover (died 1782) in polychrome marble with a veiled urn; one to his wife Mary (died 1784); and two by Coade and Sealy to James Templer (dated 1813) and Captain W Templer (dated 1805). On the south side of the west wall is a cenotaph in marble and Coade stone with a tiny gilt brass relief commemorating Nelson.

The 1872 re-ordering includes pews, a communion rail, and a gallery ballustrade. Late 19th-century additions comprise the pulpit, reader's desk, and lectern. A second font by Caffin of Regent Street features an octagonal bowl with relief panels of plants and heraldry; an inscription on its step is dated 1892. The lancet windows to the apse contain unmatched stained glass, that to the north dating to around 1875.

Elsewhere in the church there is interesting 18th-century fenestration with both timber glazing bars and original leading patterns, retaining much old clear glass.

Despite late 19th-century alterations, this is a well-preserved and evocative 18th-century country church and represents a regionally early use of the Gothick style.