Chapel Of St John The Evangelist

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist is a small chapel of ease to the parish church of Bishopsteignton, located in farmland just outside the village of Luton. Plans were drawn up in 1852 by the amateur architect William Tozer of Teignmouth. The chapel is constructed of grey limestone rubble with Bathstone dressings and has a steep red tiled roof with sprocketted eaves.

The building comprises a nave with a west end bellcote, a chancel, a south porch, and a small, lean-to north-east vestry. It incorporates both Decorated and Perpendicular detailing. The chancel has a platband below the east window, which returns on the north and south sides. The east window is a 3-light Decorated window with carved label stops; a cusped triangular window is on the south side. The north-east vestry is a small lean-to with a stone stack featuring a truncated shaft. The nave is buttressed, with angle buttresses at the west end and 3-light, square-headed, cusped windows; two are on the north side, and one on the south. The west end has a gabled bellcote with two small slit windows under a heavy hoodmould, and a 2-light Decorated west window. A pretty, gabled south porch features open, trefoil-headed timber arcading on low stone walls.

Inside, the walls are plastered, with brick rere arches to the windows and door. A double-chamfered chancel arch is present, and the nave has a collar rafter roof with straight struts below the collar. The chancel has a boarded, canted wagon roof with roll-moulded ribs and a painted scheme of stencilling and roundels dating from 1884, commemorating Revd. W.P. Ogle; earlier diaper designs on the walls were removed. The chancel floor has a simple tile pattern, with a probably early 18th century (C18) timber nowy-headed reredos and a plain 1852 communion rail. The sill of the south window extends downwards as a recessed seat with a chamfered arch. A vestry door has a cranked lintel on the north side, and a heavy string course rises as a hoodmould to the vestry door and south side seat. The nave contains an openwork timber drum pulpit. The font has a deep octagonal bowl and clustered marble shafts on a moulded plinth. Benches, some designated “Free” with Y-shaped ends, are also present. A brass plaque in the chancel commemorates Revd. W.P. Ogle, who died in 1884. The east window, dating from approximately the 1880s, was likely made by Drake of Exeter. A quarry and border west window, which was “removed from the mother church,” was installed in 1886.