Church Of St Mary And St Gregory

Church of St Mary and St Gregory

Frithelstock is a Grade I Anglican parish church with a history spanning from the 13th century to the 15th century, with significant later additions and alterations. The building adjoins the ruins of a 13th-century Augustinian Priory.

The church is constructed of coursed slatestone rubble with squared and coursed stone to the tower and ashlar dressings throughout. It has stone-gabled and gabled slate roofs. The plan comprises a chancel with a south chapel, a nave with a south aisle, and a west tower.

The oldest element is the 13th-century north wall of the church. The chancel was rebuilt in the early 14th century and the south aisle was built at the same period. Around 1500, a south-east chapel was added and the roofs were replaced. The west tower was rebuilt in the 15th century.

The chancel contains a fine early 14th-century east window of three lights with cinquefoiled lights and a circular upper light containing three spheric triangles. The three-bay north wall of the nave features early 14th-century two-light Decorated windows with hood moulds, comprising a curvilinear-tracery centre window flanked by rectilinear-tracery windows.

The south-east chapel has mid-19th-century buttresses and a mid-19th-century Decorated-style three-light east window, which replaced an earlier 15th-century Perpendicular window. The two-bay south wall contains a 16th-century priest's door with a plank and studded construction, set in a chamfered pointed arch with label moulds. Adjacent are circa 1500 three-light round-arched windows with hollow-moulded mullions and casement-moulded architrave.

The two-bay south wall of the nave has hood moulds over late 15th-century three-light Perpendicular windows, and a Perpendicular-style window dated 1884 in the west gable.

The late 15th-century south porch features a crenellated parapet with openwork frieze pierced with quatrefoils. A sundial dated 1741 is positioned above the pointed-arched hollow-moulded doorway with Perpendicular capitals to engaged columns. A reset 12th-century stoup adjoins an early 14th-century pointed-arched moulded doorway to the inner door, which is a late 18th-century panelled door bearing a 14th-century sanctuary knocker.

The four-stage 15th-century tower has offset diagonal buttresses and string courses. A three-light Perpendicular window, partly restored in the 19th century, sits above a studded door dated 1676, set in a 15th-century pointed-arched moulded doorway. Label moulds crown two-light cinquefoiled windows with slate louvres to the belfry. The parapet is crenellated with 18th-century pinnacles.

The interior features late 15th-century wagon roofs throughout with moulded ribs and floral-carved bosses. The five-bay south arcade comprises two bays circa 1500 extending to the south-east chapel with hollow-chamfered capitals and piers, and three early 14th-century bays to the west between the nave and south aisle. These have similar piers with more pronounced wave-moulding, crocketed canopies over image niches, and foliate-carved capitals including a Green Man and vine trail. An early 14th-century moulded and pointed arched doorway provides access to the rood stairs.

The north nave wall displays Royal Arms of fine plasterwork framed by Corinthian columns, executed by John Abbot in 1677.

The church contains important fittings. Late 15th and early 16th-century bench ends and fronts in the choir and south-east chapel are carved with tracery patterns, foliate ribs, and heraldry including the arms of Hartland Abbey (former owner of Frithelstock Priory) and the crowned double-rose of Henry VII. Additional carved details include the Instruments of the Passion, the Tudor rose, and figures including a man with a liripipe. Some bench ends are fashioned from roughly-adzed oak.

A late 17th-century pulpit has reeded pilasters framing blind arches with egg and dart carving to the architraves, reset on a late 19th-century base. A late 17th-century parish chest features guilloche carving. A 13th-century quatrefoil-shaped font with cabled herringbone decoration to the stem is reset on a late 19th-century base. A late 18th-century west screen has three pointed-arched doorways and panelled doors.

The floors contain 17th-century Barnstaple tiles and late medieval inlaid tiles in the nave and choir. Monuments include 17th and 18th-century slate ledger stones with memorials to the Gay family of Cloister Hall Farm, and a tablet dated 1794 in the south-east chapel. Mid-19th-century stained glass is present throughout.