Church Of St Bridget

Church of St Bridget

This is an Anglican parish church of considerable architectural complexity, with elements spanning from the 13th century to the late 20th century.

The earliest parts date to the 13th century: the chancel and north transept. The nave was enlarged in the mid-14th century, and the south transept was enlarged as a south aisle with porch between 1400 and 1450. The tower was built around 1450. The church underwent major restoration in 1723, when the west gable end of the south aisle was rebuilt. A vestry was added in 1878 by architect J.P. St Aubyn, with clerk of works Mr Crutchett; at this time slate floors were laid and minor restoration undertaken. The interior was refitted between 1889 and 1913, the chancel was reroofed in 1897, the north transept roof in 1905, and the roof was reslated in 1985–86.

The building is constructed of random rubble local stone, with rendered south face to the chancel and granite dressings throughout. The tower and porch facade are ashlar. The south aisle and porch have hollow chamfer ashlar wallplates with coped verges and diamond pattern slates, while the porch and vestry have decorative ridge tiles and the vestry gable end has decorative slate bargeboards.

The plan comprises the chancel, vestry, north transept (known as the Lady chapel), a 5-bay south aisle, south porch, and a west tower.

The tower is a crenellated three-stage structure without buttresses. It has crocketed finials and tiny stairlight openings on all stages in the north-west corner. The bell-stage has 2-light louvred openings. In the south-east corner of the bell-stage is an unidentified column of incised markings about 5 courses high, not thought to be mason's marks. The south front has a square-headed opening with a hoodmould. The west front has a 3-light window, and the west door is beneath a 4-centred arch-head with a string course continued as a hoodmould. The door itself is of late 19th or early 20th-century plank construction. The tower has a moulded plinth.

The south aisle has an unlit west gable end with a slate tablet in the south-west corner commemorating John Jewel the Younger, who died 6 January 1778, featuring an angel's face in relief. The south aisle contains four 3-light cinquefoil-headed hollow chamfered granite windows with hoodmoulds. A single-storey porch is positioned between the first and second bays to the west, with a round-headed opening and decorative spandrels. The porch is topped by a square hoodmould with stops that also incorporates a niche surmounted by the effigy of a man with a book, probably St Michael. The niche now contains a sundial of around 1800. The porch has a moulded plinth and a chequerboard floor of slates laid on edge. Inside the porch is a decorative ribbed barrel vault with bosses, and a pointed arched opening leads to the south door, which is of late 19th or early 20th-century construction. The porch houses two 18th or 19th-century slate tablets with the Ten Commandments, removed from the high altar in the late 19th century. It also contains stocks and a Romanesque pillar piscina, now used as a holy water stoup. On the west front of the porch is a slate slab with an incised angel's face inscribed to Joan Curry, who died 22 June 1769, aged 99 years and 9 months; the tablet has split. A late 19th-century 3-light east window lights the south aisle. There is a 3-light east window to the chancel and a 19th-century 3-light window to the vestry. The gable end of the north transept has a square-headed 3-light window beneath a hoodmould. A buttressed 20th-century lean-to has been added in the angle between the north transept and nave.

The north front of the nave has a blocked pointed arch doorway and a 14th-century trefoil-headed opening to the west, known as the Mary window. Several interesting 18th and 19th-century slate headstones are unattached and lean against this wall.

Interior

The interior surfaces are rendered, except for exposed jambs to the east window and exposed masonry in the tower and to the granite south arcade.

The chancel has a 19th-century open ribbed barrel vault with painted decoration, bosses, and angels to the wallplate. The nave has an open barrel vault with unmoulded ribs and wallplate. The south aisle has an open barrel vault with fine decorative ribs and wallplate. The vestry has a scissor-brace roof. There is no chancel arch.

The tower arch is very high, almost semicircular, with enriched capitals featuring cable moulding (best preserved on the interior of the tower), long stops, and a hollow chamfer pointed arch to the tower stair. An unmoulded semicircular arch opens to the north transept, which has slate projections.

The arcade between the nave and south aisle consists of five bays in Perpendicular style, with depressed pointed arches and octagonal capitals.

A semicircular-headed doorway in the east wall of the north transept formerly served the roodstair and now opens to the vestry. A doorway to the roodloft remains extant but is now partly blocked by the cresting of a 19th-century roodscreen.

The south wall of the chancel contains a small pointed arch-headed piscina, originally forming part of the jamb to an unidentified opening. A square-headed aumbry opening exists in the north wall.

The floors of the nave and aisles are of squared slate set in a chequerboard pattern. The chancel floor is laid with encaustic tiles by Goodwin and Company.

A Norman font survives, comprising a bowl and stem of one piece in an egg-cup shape.

Two pieces of medieval stained glass remain in the south-east window of the aisle. The east window of the aisle is dated 1857 and was resited from the east window when the reredos was added.

Fittings dating from 1889–1907 include the roodscreen, baptistry screen, organ case, reredos, lamps, and a carved wooden surround to the Mary window in the north wall of the nave.

Monuments include works by members of the Kingdon family, who were incumbents during the 18th to early 20th centuries, including a monument by Emes and Stephens of Exeter to John Kingdon (died 1808), who was rector for 40 years. A damaged slate floor slab behind the organ commemorates Nicholas Sharsell, vicar (died 1698). A fine early to mid-17th-century slate tablet without the owner's name is inscribed with a poem explaining that the deceased was a young bride of a few months; she was probably a member of the Gilbert family of Tackbeare Manor, now Tackbeare Farmhouse.

The church contains an extensive collection of Tractarian fittings that are mass-produced and, while not of high artistic standard, represent an interesting survival of 19th-century taste. In the vestry is a list of 'wants' compiled by the rector in 1883, recording costs and dates of acquisition for various items.