Church Of St Swithin

The Church of St Swithin is an Anglican parish church with a pre-Conquest foundation, significantly altered in the early 14th century. Further development occurred with the addition of a north and south aisle and clerestory, followed by the refenestration of the south aisle in the 15th century and the construction of a tower around 1400. The north aisle was refenestrated in the early 16th century, and an extensive restoration in 1885, undertaken by R. Medley Fulford of Exeter, involved reroofing, reseating, reflooring, and the replacement of many windows.

The church is built of random rubble local stone with Hatherleigh stone dressings, and has slate roofs with coped verges and decorative ridge tiles. It comprises a three-bay chancel, a four-bay nave with north and south aisles and clerestory, a west tower, and a south porch. The four-stage west tower features angle buttresses, pyramid finials, louvred bell openings, a clock, a stairlight, a two-light window above a 19th-century trefoil-headed doorway accessed by an external staircase, and lacks a west door or window.

The buttressed south aisle has a 19th-century three-light window in the west gable and to the west of the porch, which has a bevelled arched opening and a barrel-vaulted roof with restored and dated enriched ribs. A pointed arch opening, also bevelled, connects to the south aisle with a 19th-century door featuring decorative ironwork. Further south wall windows include uncusped three-light windows, a 19th-century three-light window in the east gable, and a 19th-century priest's door alongside a blocked window opening. The chancel south wall has two 19th-century two-light windows and a four-light east window; a slate tablet commemorates Samuel Parsons, who died in 1791. The north wall has three two-light windows, while the north aisle's east gable features a three-light window. The north wall also showcases three three-light mullioned windows under square hoodmoulds, a pointed arch doorway between the first and second bays to the west, and a 19th-century rose window in the west gable.

Internally, the church is rendered. Architectural features include a chamfered chancel arch with two orders dying into imposts, double-chamfered pointed arch openings to the arcades, and depressed pointed arch openings in the clerestory and tower. A rood stair has a depressed segmental opening with a square-headed loft opening above. The chancel contains an early 14th-century piscina and sedilia, extensively restored in the 19th century. The chancel and nave have 19th-century ceiled wagon roofs with enriched beams and bosses; the chancel roof has angels on the wallplate, while the aisle roofs have open wagon roofs retaining remnants of original enriched beams and bosses. Other fittings include a 19th-century internal porch and a Norman octagonal granite font on a 19th-century base. The church was dedicated by Bishop Grandisson of Exeter in 1334.