Church of St Mary is a Grade II* listed building in the West Devon local planning authority area, England. First listed on 22 February 1967. Church. 1 related planning application.
Church of St Mary
- WRENN ID
- endless-minaret-russet
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- West Devon
- Constituency
- Central Devon MP: Sir Mel Stride (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 22 February 1967
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Mary, Northlew, EX20 3PE
- OS grid reference
- SX 507 979
- Coordinates
- 50.76198, -4.11707
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Mary is a redundant parish church with a late 16th and early 17th century tower, and the remainder of the church rebuilt between 1871 and 1872 for Henry Wollcombe, Archdeacon of Barnstaple. It is constructed of coursed volcanic stone rubble with a gable end slate roof featuring 19th-century decorative ridge tiles. The church's plan includes a nave, chancel, west tower, and a south porch.
The tower, dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, is a two-stage structure with diagonal buttresses, battlemented parapets with four obelisk pinnacles, and a chamfered plinth. It features square-headed two-light belfry openings. A round-headed west doorway has hollow and roll mouldings terminating in scrolled head stops, and a carved stone mask, possibly re-used, sits as a keystone. Above the doorway is a two-light window with four-centred heads, recessed spandrels, and a peaked hoodmould. Two small arched stair lights are present on the north side, with a chamfered plinth.
The rest of the church, rebuilt in 1871-2 in a Decorated style, is of the 19th century, reputedly based on the plan of the original church. The chancel is lower than the nave. The nave has two two-light windows with plate tracery on each side and the chancel has a cinquefoiled light with a trefoiled light to its right on the south side, and a single cinquefoiled light on the north side. Beneath the north-side light is a re-used granite four-centred arched priest's door. The east window has plate tracery. The single-story gabled south porch has a two-centred arched doorway.
The interior includes a round-headed tower arch with a chamfer and dropped keystone. The 19th-century interior is simple, but has decorative details such as carved foliage corbel stones supporting the chancel arch. The roof is exposed, featuring paired common rafters with collars and a collar purlin, and arch-braced principal rafters. Original 19th-century fittings, including trestle benches, are largely intact. Three 17th-century memorial slabs and one from 1595 (to Arthur Strowde) are re-set within the tower. The church retains an unusually late tower, and the 19th-century rebuild is well-designed with pleasing detail.
Local climate
Church of St Mary sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,020 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 81% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 77% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 24 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 75% of listed buildings. Of these, 10 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 2015
- Related listed building consents — 1 application
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings