Church of St Paul

Church of St Paul

A rugged Gothic church in baronial style, built of well-mortared random rubble masonry including ironstone with roughly dressed quoins and red sandstone ashlar dressings, beneath a Welsh slate roof with corbelled eaves.

The east end displays a large five-light window with curvilinear tracery, apex ventilation slits, and tall tiered buttresses with saddleback caps that are battered at the base. On the north side, a projecting three-sided stair turret fits into the angle between vestry and chancel, lit by a lancet window, with a tall tapering chimney above. The gabled vestry wing has a recessed doorway (with another blocked), further lancets to light the organ loft at first floor level, and a blocked doorway.

The transept bays break forward to the west, each gabled with a three-light window of curvilinear tracery, hoodmould, and twin apex ventilation slits between ashlar bands. Buttresses with saddleback caps flank and separate these bays, supported by a projecting ground floor bay with shallow tiled roof, battered and fitted with twin lancets to each bay.

The west end shows raw edges of discontinued walls in vertical composition, with buttresses at each corner of the nave flanking a large west window without tracery and wooden frame. Buttresses and pilasters rise to support a hipped roof extending over the window, descending into the walls of the porch, which has a steep single-pitch roof with swept eaves supported by large roughly hewn stone corbels. Blank slated walls remain where the unbuilt aisles would have been at the transepts; the south transept is similar to the north, but includes a heavy moulded pointed arched doorway and a large east-facing archway blocked with wood. A wide arch on the south chancel wall is also blocked, marking the site of the unbuilt Lady Chapel; a priests' door and two lancets at upper level are present.

Interior

The interior has unrendered stone rubble walls with ashlar dressings. The nave of two bays has north and south aisles with tall slender octagonal piers and moulded pointed arches but no capitals. There is no chancel arch. To the south, a further smaller pointed arch is blocked with masonry with a low wide arch below; a similar taller pointed arch stands at the end of the south aisle, both curtained off. The south wall has recessed pointed arched paired and single lancets and doorways. Deep recessed arches at the west end terminate in blank walls to the north and south aisles. A shouldered doorway leads to the vestry on the north side with steps up to the organ chamber above with a small gallery; a similar doorway is on the south side, along with arches to the once-proposed Lady Chapel.

The roof is of principal moulded pegged oak trusses rising from corbels in the arcade spandrels. Paired trusses mark the division between nave and chancel and the sanctuary. Shallower intermediate trusses within each bay rise from the crenellated wallplate, with the ceiling between boarded in rectangular panels.

The chancel is three steps up, with the sanctuary dominated by an elaborate gilded triptych by Wippell's, the church furnishing company of Exeter, dating to around 1960, depicting the Last Supper with further scenes on the doors. A piscina is in the south wall; doors to the north and south have cusped heads. The furnishings include a plain stone pulpit, stone floor, a small octagonal font in Perpendicular style, and a memorial tablet to the founder of the church on the west wall.