Church Of St Mary

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.