Church Of St Stephen

Church of St Stephen

This is an Anglican parish church with 13th-century origins, substantially rebuilt in the 15th century and restored in the 19th century. The building is constructed from local lias stone, partly rubble and partly squared, with areas of flint and Ham stone dressings, beneath Welsh slate roofs set between coped gables.

The church follows a three-cell plan comprising a two-bay chancel, a crossing with tower, and a long two-bay nave. A south porch is linked to a separate 20th-century vestry. The chancel is notably inclined southwards off axis, with a plinth and angled corner buttresses. The east window is a three-light 19th-century rebuild with geometric tracery and an arched square-stop label. The south wall contains a plain lancet with an eastward label, a small two-light early Perpendicular window also with an arched label, and between them a moulded pointed-arched doorway with label, probably dating to the 15th century. The north wall has a two-light early Perpendicular window with an eastward label and a simple lancet with an unstopped label to the west.

The central tower rises in three stages with an octagonal-plan stair-turret of slightly greater height on its south-west corner. The tower features strings, corner gargoyles, battlemented parapets, and side buttresses rising two stages. The lowest stage is plain to the north but has a restored two-light 15th-century traceried window in a deep hollowed recess on the south. The second stage has a small lancet on the east face. The third stage has two-light 15th-century traceried windows in deep four-centre-arched hollowed recesses on all faces, with a clockface inserted on the east side.

The nave has a plinth, angled corner buttresses, and bay buttresses. It is lit by wide three-light 15th-century traceried windows of varying patterns in deep hollowed recesses under arched square-stop labels, with two on each of the north and south sides. The west end originally had a moulded pointed-arched doorway under a deep square label with headstops and foliage-carved spandrels, now converted to a three-light window. This is flanked by two half-height buttresses, with above an almost semi-circular-arched three-light window with Curvilinear tracery under a beadstop label.

The south porch is gabled and coped with a squared block sundial and no buttresses. It has a plain chamfered pointed outer arch and a pair of 18th-century panelled doors. The inner doorway is chamfered and almost semi-circular arched. A pitched-roof covered way connects the porch to the vestry, which dates to 1926-1930 and is constructed in cut and squared Ham stone with ashlar dressings. The vestry has a Welsh slate roof between coped gables with finials, its ridge parallel with that of the nave. The gable walls contain two-light windows in 15th-century style, and the south wall has a three-light flat-arched window. A doorway in the north wall opens opposite the porch.

The interior is varied in character. The chancel was largely restored in the 19th century and features an open ribbed barrel vault roof. The south wall windows have internal labels, and the east wall retains fragments of linenfold panelling used as a dado, together with an 1873 reredos by Harry Hems of Exeter. The chancel and nave arches of the crossing are 15th-century, with a timber screen mostly of that period. The space beneath the tower has a 19th-century timber roof. The nave has a timber rib-and-panel roof with large bosses, possibly dating to the 15th century, and a small squint on the south side of the nave arch.

The principal fittings include a fine Jacobean timber-panelled pulpit with Ionic columns at the corners, mounted on a later base, with an octagonal tester featuring a bell-hip top crowned by an acorn finial. A 15th-century panelled octagonal stone font survives, while other fittings date to the 19th century. On the north wall of the tower is a fine painted tympanum piece on boards depicting the crucifixion, dating to the 15th or 16th century. This is one of very few known examples with this subject and was formerly set over the screen and rood loft. Memorials include a marble wall tablet in the east wall of the chancel commemorating Robert Henley, who died in 1639. Six mass dials are recorded on the exterior of the building. The first recorded rector dates to 1321.