Church Of Saint Paul

Church of Saint Paul, Starcross

Parish church located on the south side of Kenton Church Street. A datestone of 1828 marks the original construction, with the building constructed in grey limestone rubble with Bathstone dressings and slate roofs.

The church was originally designed in Greek style by Charles Hedgeland in 1826, but underwent substantial remodelling between 1852 and 1854 by David Mackintosh, who recast the building in an unarchaeological Romanesque Revival style. This later work included a new chancel, south vestry, bell turret, north porch, exposure of the timber roof, and replacement of the original sash windows with stone windows.

The plan comprises a 4-bay nave with a west gallery and west end bellcote, with entrances at the west end and on the north side.

Exterior features include a gabled chancel with clasping buttresses and three round-headed windows with shafts and Romanesque capitals, with similar windows to the north and south. A small south-east vestry has a pedimented east gable, a round-headed east window, and a south doorway with a round-headed arch. The nave is buttressed on the east wall with angle buttresses at the west, and buttressed on the north side with four round-headed moulded stone windows to the south elevation and three to the north. A shallow gabled north-west porch contains a two-leaf plank and stud door. The west end projects slightly forward in the centre, where a projection with dentil cornice, set-offs and clasping buttresses rises as a gabled bellcote. The west doorway features shafts and Romanesque capitals with a two-leaf plank, cover strip and stud door, with a round-headed window above. A datestone above the dentil cornice, now largely illegible, commemorates the Reverend William Powley and is said to date to 1828. The bell hangs in a round-headed arch with shafts and Romanesque capitals, with a smaller round-headed arch above.

The interior features plastered walls and a round-headed chancel arch with engaged shafts and Romanesque capitals. The west end gallery has a simple panelled frontal on partly fluted columns, with the gallery screened below. The nave roof comprises eight bays with tie beam and queen post trusses on stone corbels with pendants and braces, while the chancel has a collar rafter roof with diagonal braces below the collar.

Furnishings include a 1928 alabaster reredos with a carved panel and symbols of the crucifixion, with coeval marble paving to the sanctuary floor. A timber communion rail of 1905 features round-headed arches. The nave contains a late 19th-century timber drum pulpit with traceried panels, a good 1932 eagle lectern, and an unusual font with a tiny octagonal bowl on a slender stem. Choir stalls and nave benches probably date from Mackintosh's work of the 1850s. Stained glass, probably by Beer of Exeter dating from the 1850s, includes the east window and east windows to the nave. Memorials include a marble wall tablet to Richard Eales, died 1852, signed R. Brown of 58 Great Russell Street, London, and a coloured marble wall tablet signed Easton, Exeter, to Charles Eales, died 1874. Royal Arms of 1828 are also present.

In 1829 Starcross was made into an ecclesiastical parish from parts of the districts of Dawlish and Kenton. The church is historically interesting for its eclectic 1850s Romanesque work, presumably necessitated by the form of the original Greek design, and presents a sharp contrast with the archaeologically correct Gothic being erected in the Diocese at the same time.