Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

A parish church in Stokeinteignhead, largely dating from the late 14th and 15th centuries, with significant alterations in the 19th century. The chancel was rebuilt in 1867, and a major restoration was carried out in 1894 by Tait and Harvey. The building is rendered except for the red sandstone chancel, which is roofed in slate.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north and south transepts, four-bay north and south aisles, a south porch (no longer in use), a north porch, and a north-east vestry. The architectural style is predominantly Perpendicular, with a substantial late 19th-century restoration and a Decorated chancel of 1867.

Exterior

Most of the windows are untraceried, presumably dating from the 18th or early 19th century when the mullions were replaced but the medieval tracery was lost. The chancel is in the 19th-century Decorated style, with diagonal buttresses, a three-light Decorated east window with carved label stops, two two-light Decorated windows on the south side, and one on the north side. The north-east vestry features a moulded doorway in the east end and a three-light window to the north.

The north transept has a three-light Perpendicular east window and a three-light Decorated north window. The south transept has an untraceried three-light south window and a similar east window, which appears to be a late 19th-century copy. The south aisle, with a diagonal south-west buttress, contains a three-light Perpendicular west window with some mullion and jamb replacement, and three four-light untraceried south windows. The former porch has a similar three-light south window. The north aisle, with a north-west diagonal buttress, has a four-light medieval Perpendicular window to the east of the porch with decayed carved label stops, an untraceried transomed window to the west of the porch with carved medieval label stops, and a similar four-light west window with a 19th-century hoodmould and label stops.

The tower is battlemented with diagonal buttresses and an unrendered embattled polygonal north-east stair turret. It has a moulded west doorway with a hoodmould and an untraceried four-light west window, and large two-light traceried belfry openings on all four sides. The north porch has an inner moulded doorway with pyramid stops and a hoodmould, together with a 19th-century boarded wagon roof with carved bosses.

Interior

The walls are unplastered except for the chancel. A 19th-century timber chancel arch separates the chancel from the nave. The four-bay north and south arcades have low red sandstone piers with corner shafts and carved capitals featuring broad foliage carving. The three westernmost capitals of the north arcade differ in design and possibly incorporate re-used medieval pieces with angel carvings divided by niches. The relationship between the roof of the aisles and transepts is unusual: the aisle wallplates oversail the transepts and are supported on corbels with upward curving braces. This arrangement is probably 19th-century but may be based on a medieval original.

The nave, aisles and transepts have 19th-century boarded wagon roofs with moulded ribs and bosses, as does the chancel with an open wagon configuration.

The most notable interior feature is a rood screen described by Pevsner as "one of the earliest surviving in Devon" and dated to the 14th century by Bond and Camm. The screen has square-headed three-light openings with a band of heavily-cusped tracery above the centre, decorated with an ogee arch above the two-leaf door. The rood loft is uncoved with an oversailing design, and the rood-loft stair rises from the north transept.

The chancel contains a trefoil-headed piscina on the south wall. The chancel fittings date mostly from the 1890s: a timber reredos, mosaic and marble flooring, a brass altar rail with ornamental copper spandrels, and good choir stalls with carved ends and two canopied thrones with reading desks. A shallow arch leads into the organ chamber, partly concealed by the organ.

The nave contains a 1914 timber drum pulpit with traceried panels, a contemporary octagonal font with carved traceried panels, a three-bay 1912 tower screen, and a timber eagle lectern probably also of the early 20th century. Plain late 19th and early 20th-century benches furnish the nave. A holy water stoup remains on the north wall, and piscinas exist in the east walls of both transepts.

Monuments and Inscriptions

Reset in the sanctuary floor is a brass to a priest who died in 1375, described by Pevsner as the earliest such brass in Devon. Several ledger stones are used as paving. An unusual and lengthy early 19th-century inscription tablet in the chancel commemorates the Graham family, signed by Faulkner of Exeter: "In memory of a family, nine of whom all suffered in their country's cause, by being either killed, drowned, wounded or dying, in service, including the father, 2 uncles, 4 brothers and 2 nephews". The chancel also displays other early 19th-century white marble wall plaques. A black wall tablet in the south aisle commemorates "Jfet (letters unclear) Cock, died 1746".

Stained Glass

Three medieval fragments hang in the south transept. The north transept contains single figures and details from a Beer design. The east window of the north transept bears memorial dates of 1871 and 1876 and probably dates from the work of Drake of Exeter. A First World War memorial occupies the east window, probably by Blanchford. The south window in the chancel is signed by Lavers Barraud and Westlake and dated 1874.