Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This is a parish church with substantial medieval origins and significant 19th-century restoration. The building comprises a west tower, nave and chancel with no external division, a four-bay north aisle, a north-east vestry, and a south-west porch. It is constructed of stone rubble including Heavitree and volcanic stone with granite and freestone dressings. The tower has rough cast render on its east, west and south faces, with old render on the north face, and the building is roofed in slate.

Medieval and Early Fabric

From the original 12th-century church, a rounded arched doorway survives in the south porch, now housed beneath a 12th-century Beerstone arch with carved heads at either end and a carved head keystone. Between the heads the arch is decorated with carved stone whorls. The tower is probably late Perpendicular in date. The granite piers of the north arcade, with low octagonal monolith shafts and chamfered capitals, may be 14th-century Decorated but are more likely to be late Perpendicular. The rounded double-chamfered arches of the arcade are similar to those at Exminster and Dunchideock. The south doorway is also part of the 12th-century church.

19th-Century Restoration and Enlargement

In 1843, the architect John Hayward undertook substantial rebuilding and enlargement. The north aisle, which had been described as "ruinous", was largely rebuilt. The chancel was extended to the east with a new coped gable and diagonal buttresses entirely of 1843 work. The three-light east window preserves the granite sill and jambs of the medieval predecessor but has Perpendicular freestone tracery and hood-mould dating from the restoration. The church was re-roofed, window tracery was replaced (mostly within original embrasures), and a vestry was added. A new chancel was refurbished and the church reseated, with subsequent reseating in the 20th century.

Exterior Details

On the south side, the nave is flush with the chancel. The south wall has two buttresses with set-offs (1843) and four square-headed two-light windows with hood-moulds and cusped lights. These windows sit in original embrasures with granite sills and jambs. The four-bay north aisle has two further buttresses with set-offs (1843) and three-light Perpendicular-style traceried windows at the east and west ends, with medieval sills and jambs intact. Three additional three-light square-headed windows with trefoil-headed lights flush with the north wall are entirely of 1843.

The north-east vestry is gabled to the north with a stone gable end stack. It has a plain chamfered doorway on the west wall and a one-light chamfered window on the east wall.

The two-stage west tower is battlemented with diagonal west buttresses and single angle east buttresses. A battlemented polygonal north-east stair turret rises above the tower battlementing, and there are no pinnacles. A low shallow-moulded west doorway has a rounded arch below a three-light Perpendicular-style window with traceried lights and hood-mould. The north and south faces have slit windows at bellringer's stage; the south window is glazed and the north window shuttered. Two-light chamfered belfry openings appear on all four faces, with the north face opening shuttered.

The south-west porch has a coped gable and a shallow-moulded outer doorway with a rounded arch. The porch interior has a plain plastered roof and timber benches.

Interior

The interior has plastered walls with no internal nave-chancel division except for an additional rib in the roof and change in wall plate. An unmoulded two-centred tower arch springs from chamfered imposts. The 1843 unceiled waggon roofs feature moulded ribs and carved bosses; those in the nave have been recently painted.

The four-bay north arcade comprises the 1843 sections and the earlier work. The easternmost bay is narrower and lower with low octagonal granite monolith piers with chamfered capitals and rounded double-chamfered arches.

Chancel Fittings and Furnishings

The chancel contains exceptional fittings of considerable interest. A crested stone screen of 1843 features blind trefoil-headed arcading on the east wall. In the centre, immediately above the altar, a stone panel is painted with an illuminated gilded text in Gothic script—an unusual survival of an early Gothic Revival feature. On either side of the east window, the Creed and Commandments appear in panels with arched stone frames with gilded illuminated borders.

The altar is said to be an adapted Elizabethan chest from Culver House, with high-quality panels of blind tracery under ogee arches between applied buttresses.

On the north wall of the chancel there is a remarkable tomb of debated date. Both Pevsner and Cresswell have described it as an Easter sepulchre and tomb. An ogee-arched crocketted recess sits above a chest carved with four shields, flanked by tall buttresses with a cornice above. Above the cornice is a frieze of Renaissance arabesques of high quality, with similar arabesques and putti in the spandrels above the ogee arch. On the rear wall under the recess, a panel of carving in high relief represents the Resurrection, and on either side are shallower Renaissance carvings of mermen and arabesques. Pevsner implies the whole design is mid-16th century, while Cresswell argues that the Renaissance detail was applied to an earlier Gothic design in the 16th century when the Easter sepulchre was adapted as a memorial to the Dennis family. The buttresses flanking the tomb have clearly lost their pinnacles. The Resurrection carving is probably not of English origin. An account of the church prior to the 1843 restoration refers to two kneeling women on the chest.

On the south side of the chancel, a crested stone screen divided into two arched cusped panels by buttresses with pinnacles commemorates relations of Richard Stephens, died 1844, with stone lettering in relief.

Two sections of the wainscot of a late medieval rood screen have been reused as a chancel screen. The wainscot panels feature unusually good paintings of saints for Devon, apparently by two different hands.

The font is a late 15th-century ten-sided bowl with quatrefoils carved in panels on a thick stem with trefoil-headed arcading. Ancient colour survives on the conical timber font cover.

The pulpit, choir stalls and nave pews are all mid to late 20th century. Various 17th-century tomb slabs are incorporated in the paving. In the north aisle, an unsigned wall monument to Richard Stephens (died 1831) is notable, featuring a large grey marble background with a white marble inscription tablet with cornice, flanked by inverted torches, and crowned by a draped broken column.

Fixed to a window sill in the north aisle is a small headless alabaster figure of Saint Peter with ancient colour; the quality of the carving is high and the date is probably 14th century.

Glass

The east window contains fragments of late medieval glass. A complete kneeling figure is shown with a scroll inscribed "IHS fili david miserere mei". Border fragments survive, as do two coats of arms: one is Dennis impaling a coat probably meant for Godolphin, and the second is argent a chevron between three bulls' heads sable, countercharged. The pictorial glass can be attributed to the Doddiscombsleigh atelier.

The 1843 work by Hayward, executed in a sympathetic Perpendicular style, is substantial. The chancel fittings, glass and font are of particular interest.