Christ Church

Christ Church, Parracombe

Parish church built on a new site in 1878 by architect W. Oliver. The church was constructed to replace the former parish church of St. Petroc, which remained unrestored on its original site away from the village.

The building is constructed of snecked stone rubble with ashlar dressings and a slate roof with crested ridge tiles and apex crosses to the gable ends. The plan comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north aisle, and south porch.

The west tower rises in three stages with set-back buttresses and an embattled parapet. At each corner are pinnacles with octagonal bases featuring alternating gabled round-arched and straight-headed niches that reduce to elongated cone cappings terminating in fleur-de-lys finials. Large pointed-arched bell-openings of two distinct lights with louvres appear on three faces of the tower. Clock faces in segmental arched surrounds occupy the south and west sides. The west window comprises three cusped-headed lights with quatrefoil traceried head. A short gabled stair turret on the north side has a stepped triple lancet window to its gable and two lancets to the lower stage.

The south porch features a gabled slate roof with crested ridge tiles. A moulded surround frames the two-centred arched porch doorway with engaged columns supporting an inner arch, topped with a wrought iron lamp bracket. Two-light lancet windows with segmental pointed inner arches light each side wall, with a collar rafter roof overhead. An ogee-chamfered surround with broach steps frames the pointed-arched inner doorway, which has a plank door with fleur-de-lys strap-hinges.

The nave and chancel feature Decorated-style windows: two windows of two lights each and a single light window to the nave and chancel on the south side, with a continuous ashlar sill band stepped up below the chancel window. The east window is pointed-arched with three cusped-headed lights and Decorated-style tracery, corbelled hoodmould, and an ashlar band at springing level.

The north aisle comprises three gable-ended transepts, each with pointed-arched two-light windows featuring plate tracery and ashlar bands at springing level.

Interior: The chancel and nave have moulded arch-braced roofs with heavy moulded purlins and stepped pointed-arched blind tracered panels above the collar to the east gable end truss. The north aisle has collar rafter roofs with short shaped timber wall posts and corbels to the valleys. The north arcade consists of three bays with piers of semi-circular half-shafts with moulded capitals. A segmental pointed tower arch and pointed chancel arch with engaged colonettes frame the liturgical spaces. Stone carving by Hems of Exeter includes the reredos of triple arches springing from short marble colonettes, a device repeated in the shoulder-headed recesses of the double sedilia. A cusped-headed piscina appears on the north wall. Maw tiles line the chancel and a patterned tiled floor covers the nave. Nineteenth-century nave and chancel furniture includes a semi-circular drum to the stone pulpit, fronted with seven deep trefoil-headed blind niches, and an octagonal font bowl with blind tracery of two pointed arched panels to each facet, on a cylindrical stem with four engaged colonnettes.

Stained glass by Dixon in the east window commemorates Elizabeth Pyke. The chancel south window remembers Richard Middleton (died 1872). The nave's south side eastern window commemorates Rev. Leakey, rector from 1870 to 1881 and responsible for the church's restoration by architects A.L. and C.E. Moore of London. The opposite window in the north aisle commemorates Rev. William Thompson and his wife.