Church Of Saint James The Apostle

Church of Saint James the Apostle

This is a parish church largely dating from the 15th century, with a 12th-century font and substantial restoration in 1862 by Edward Ashworth. The church is built predominantly of rubble and snecked stone, with a granite ashlar tower and slate roofs. It follows a Perpendicular plan comprising a nave, chancel, four-bay north and south aisles, a south porch, a west tower, and a north-east vestry.

The west tower is the most prominent external feature: a tall, slim structure of three stages built in granite ashlar with battlemented parapets and obelisk pinnacles. It has set-back buttresses and string courses, a shallow-moulded granite west doorway dated 1680 (presumably a restoration date), a three-light Perpendicular granite traceried west window, two-light chamfered belfry openings on all four faces, and rectangular openings at the bellringers' stage on the east and west faces.

The chancel was rebuilt in the 1862 restoration and features granite ashlar quoins, set-back buttresses, a three-light 19th-century Perpendicular east window with carved label stops, and a moulded priest's door on the south side with a one-light cusped window with carved label stops. A similar north window lights the chancel, and a north-east vestry with two-light cusped square-headed east window and moulded north doorway is attached.

The north aisle has set-back buttresses with set-offs between four 19th-century Perpendicular three-light windows that retain medieval mullions and jambs, a similar east window, and a two-light square-headed cusped west window. The south aisle has comparable buttressing with Perpendicular three-light windows of 19th-century date with C19 tracery, a smaller west window, and a tall three-light 19th-century Perpendicular east window.

The south porch has set-back buttresses, a shallow-moulded granite outer doorway with "NB" carved on one jamb, a 19th-century hood mould, and carved label stops. A good ledger stone commemorating Nicholas and Walter Busell (died 1631 and 1632) is used as paving outside. The porch has a 19th-century arched brace roof and a crude chamfered rounded inner doorway with a probably 17th-century door.

Interior

The interior has plastered walls and a 19th-century timber chancel arch on brattished corbels. Four-bay granite arcades of conventional Perpendicular design rise from the nave, while a double-chamfered tower arch has its inner order on stone corbels. The nave has a ceiled wagon roof with carved bosses; the chancel roof is also a ceiled wagon of 19th-century date. The north and south aisles have ceiled wagon roofs without bosses.

The five-bay rood screen is of Pevsner's 'A' type with missing coving and 19th-century repainting. Three bays formerly in the south aisle have been relocated as the tower screen. An 1860s stone reredos of five gabled bays contains texts and paintings on tin in the central three bays, accompanied by co-eval floor tiling and 19th-century poppyhead choirstalls with traceried fronts.

The nave contains a late 19th-century timber drum pulpit with carved panels incorporating 16th-century blind tracery. The 12th-century font has a square scalloped bowl on a replaced cylindrical stem and plinth. Sixteenth-century square-headed bench ends with two tiers of blank tracery (one carved with a pomegranate) are fixed to later seating in the aisles with low doors added in the 19th century. Plain 19th-century benches occupy the nave except for two rows facing north and south with carved frontals. A plaster Royal Arms in high relief, dated 1682, bears the names of churchwardens Tho Moore and Chr Moore.

Memorials and Stained Glass

Numerous 19th-century white marble wall monuments to the Exmouth family occupy the chancel, including two of 1833 signed by E. Gaffin of Regent Street, London. One commemorates the Right Honourable Pownoll Bastard Pellew with a mourning woman; the second celebrates the Right Honourable Edward Pellew with a sarcophagus, urn, and laurels framed by half columns and naval trophies above, accompanied by a lengthy verse recording Pellew's rescue of 500 people from the wreck of the "Dutton". The nave contains numerous 19th-century wall monuments and two fine slate-cut ledger stones affixed to the west and north walls commemorating Edmund Davis (died 1652) and John Davys (died 1682).

Fragments of 15th-century canopy work and a figure survive in the easternmost south aisle window. Some 18th-century bottle glass appears in the head tracery of the north aisle. Outstanding Clayton and Bell glass of 1862 (memorial date) fills the east window of the south aisle. The chancel east window is probably by Drake of Exeter, with 1899 memorial glass by Ward and Hughes in the first bay from the east of the south aisle (memorial date 1913), and a window in the north aisle opposite the door with memorial date 1867, probably by William Wailes.