Church Of St Paul

Church of St Paul

Church, 1859–1861, designed by JW Rowell. Built of squared Devon limestone rubble with freestone dressings and a slate roof hipped and swept to the eaves of the five-sided apse, which has a stone stack to the south side.

The building follows a cruciform plan with a canted chancel end, a vestry with an adjacent stack to the south east, and a wooden bell turret. A rectangular-plan range with a canted end extends eastwards from the north east.

The exterior displays gabled nave and transepts with stone crosses to the parapets. Gable windows are circular with alternate red and cream voussoirs encircling three quatrefoiled lights. Cream freestone rustication decorates the diagonal buttresses at quoins and centres of the transepts. The vestry has irregular lancets and a flying buttress feature. Aisles to the rear (west) of the transepts have paired lancets. Central buttresses are flanked by tall lancets. The four-bay nave, articulated by offset buttresses, has paired lancets under wide relieving arches with pointed relieving arches of cream freestone. Cream freestone pointed relieving arches also crown the lancet windows.

The north porch is particularly fine, featuring alternate voussoirs of buff and grey to a pointed moulded arch on two orders of colonettes with dog-tooth carving. An inner chamfered arch frames decorative wrought-iron hinges on double plank doors and a brick arch bearing stencilled lettering reading "This is the Gate of Heaven....". A square-plan bell tower at the crossing is slate-hung at the base, with a painted timber belfry of three trefoil-headed open panels with quatrefoils to the bases of each side. It is roofed by a tall square spire offset at the eaves, topped with a cockerel weathervane. The large west window features alternating buff and grey voussoirs to a wide segmental arch over a triplet of windows with colonettes and chamfered trefoiled lancets flanking a two-light plate-tracery window.

The interior displays a striking timber-frame, cross-arched-braced roof on stone corbels, forming an openwork quadripartite form at the crossing. The five-sided apse trusses fan out and rest on marble corbels. Pointed-arched rear arches with dog-tooth moulding, engaged colonettes and trefoil heads frame twentieth-century stained glass windows. Triple polished colonettes with elaborately carved corbels above and below support a pointed chancel arch of alternate red and cream voussoirs. A corbelled-out pulpit to the left ascends by winding stone steps. The chancel floor is finished in fine polychromatic tiles. An oak communion rail features brass scroll supports. Original pews remain, alongside a 1932 octagonal font with granite plinth, red marble shaft, and cream freestone base and bowl. The interior also contains a First World War memorial glass window.

JW Rowell provided designs for the development of the Courtenay estate between approximately 1840 and 1860, of which Devon Square formed the centre. This is a finely-detailed and characterful design by a prominent local architect with marked awareness of national architectural trends and the work of architects such as Teulon and Carpenter. The church is sited prominently in the centre of Devon Square.