Parish Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Newton Abbot

This is a parish church of 15th-century date, with an earlier west tower and a south aisle and porch dating to around 1516. The building is constructed of squared Devon limestone rubble with slate roofs and terracotta ridges.

The church follows a rectangular aisled plan with a five-bay nave extending to the chancel and sanctuary. Transeptal chapels project from the east end of the nave. The west tower is a prominent feature, with a low 20th-century block attached to its north side. A projecting south porch completes the external composition.

Externally, the parapets to the gables at each end of the aisles and to the sanctuary are coped, with moulded kneelers and pierced crosses at the apexes. Several windows in the aisles have granite mullions below white freestone tracery. The fenestration is predominantly 15th-century Perpendicular in style, with the exception of the windows to the transeptal chapels, which date to around 1710 and feature tall four-light flat-arched windows. The 15th-century Perpendicular five-light east window has cusped ogee heads to the main lights, whilst the shallow-pointed four-light east windows to the parcloses contain 15th-century panel tracery. The north side of the sanctuary is plain with a blocked window. The aisles are lit by mainly four-light panel-traceried windows with traces of mask stops.

The two-stage west tower has moulded string courses over each stage and a battlemented parapet. Paired belfry louvres to each side share a rubblestone relieving arch. A three-light west window with mask stops to the hoodmould sits above a red gritstone pointed arch leading to 20th-century double doors. The gabled south porch, restored in 1885 in memory of Thomas Mackrell, is centred on the south side and features a low, almost round arch of gritstone with moulded stops at plinth level and granite steps. Above the porch is a 16th-century flat-arched window with ogee heads to four lights below paired quatrefoils. To the east end is a label mould over a restored Tudor-arched door, with a 16th-century tall flat-arched four-light window above featuring sunk spandrels and head stops to the label mould. Against the south side of the sanctuary stands a 19th-century single-storey block with a three-light leaded window.

The interior contains six pointed arches springing from slender columns with polygonal concave main shafts. The capitals are intricately carved in a style characteristic of 15th-century Devon work, depicting vine, oak and other foliage with various creatures including a boar eating acorns, birds pecking berries, an owl, slugs and snails. Traces of a former roof-line visible in the unplastered rubblestone west wall indicate that the ceiling has been raised. The present planked barrel-vaulted ceiling, substantially restored in the late 19th century and continuing to the chancel, displays mask, flower and leaf bosses arranged in 15 rows of panelling. The wall plate to the chancel is brattished with similar bosses. To the west end of the nave is a high rubblestone arch to the tower, which contains a stone newel stair in its south-west corner. The chancel floor features 19th-century polychromatic tiles.

Notable fittings include an ornate and elaborately-painted wooden screen dating to around 1518, which spans the east end and extends forward to enclose the parcloses. The screen features painted figures to the wainscotting and Perpendicular panel tracery above, with the coving missing but some especially fine carving remaining to the cornice. A Norman font of red gritstone displays cable and chevron moulding. A rare and notable medieval Gothic brass eagle lectern is said to have been hidden in Lang's Copse near Bradley Manor, Old Totnes Road, during the Commonwealth. Other fittings include a reredos of 1902 depicting the Annunciation, a late 14th-century bell probably cast by John Bird of London, and a 1914–1918 war memorial pulpit carved by Herbert Read. Beneath the pulpit is a large fragment of a bomb dropped on the churchyard on 4 May 1941.

Monuments include a canopied table tomb to William Balcall dating to around 1516. A monument to Sir Richard Reynell of Forde House, Torquay Road, dated 1634, features two alabaster supine figures with a smaller female figure lying sideways at the front and a supine baby at the base. The semicircular marble overthrow is supported by marble columns with gilded Corinthian capitals and displays cherubs and a crest above an inscription panel in cartouche. Memorial slabs of stone and slate, dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, are set into the floors of the aisles.

The church contains some fragments of medieval stained glass repositioned in the south-west corner. 19th-century glass includes work by Kempe, identifiable by his wheatsheaf signature, including a fine Evangelists scene of 1890.