Church Of St John The Baptist

WIDECOMBE-IN- LEUSDON SX 77 SW THE-MOOR 6/234 Church of St John the Baptist -

• II

Parish church, originally a chapel-of-ease of Widecombe. 1863 by J W Rowell of Newton Abbot, architect to the Palk estate. Squared granite rubble with details in limestone, probably Bath stone. Slated roof. Nave, chancel, south porch, south tower attached to junction of nave and chancel. Designed in a "geometrical decorated style". Side-walls of nave have 2-light windows with pointed arches, the lights with trefoiled heads and a quatrefoil in the head of the window. Chancel has trefoiled lancet windows. East and west windows have trefoil-headed lights, 3 on the east and 4 on the west, with 3 quatrefoils in the heads of the windows. 2-stage tower with flanking buttresses at the base. In south face a clock under a triangular stone canopy. Belfry has paired, trefoil-headed lancets in each face. Thin bracketed cornice above, finished with a parapet. Interior is very simple. Pointed, double-chamfered chancel arch of alternating limestone and granite blocks. Carved limestone pulpit with grey marble balusters. Octagonal limestone font with pink marble shaft. Carved wood reredos of circa 1907. 4 stained glass windows, 2 of them of circa 1879 and 1915; a third is inscribed with the name A A Orr, Harrow, 1912, and the initials A A O appear on the window of circa 1915. Built and endowed by Mrs C R Larpent "in lieu of the long ruined chapel of St Leonard, at Spitchwick". Sources: information from the C19 Devon Churches Research Group. White's Directory of Devonshire, 1878, p.849. R Dymond, ed., Widecombe-in-the-Moor, 1876, p.21.

Listing NGR: SX7094873200