Church Heritage Record 615285

West tower; nave with four-bay arcades; south porch; chancel with south vestry and organ chamber.

There is apparently evidence of a church dedicated to St. Petrox on this site in the twelfth-century, but all traces of a Norman building seem to have been eradicated (above ground, at least). The tower is fourteenth-century, and the nave, chancel and aisles followed on during that century and the earlier part of the next. The church was restored thoroughly in 1849-50, at a cost of £600, and re-opened on 24 March 1850; the chancel was extended eastwards and by the addition of a vestry in 1873-4.

Although a Norman church is thought to have stood on the site, there is now no clearly visible remnant of this period. The earliest surviving part of the fabric is the west tower which, with its unbuttressed walls and pronounced batter, looks older than the fourteenth-century date usually assigned to it. It is of three stages, the upper two being approachedby a stair within a square projecting turret at the north-east corner. The lowest stage is blind to the north and south and has a doorway in the west wall with a plainly chamfered two-centred arch and a three-light window within a moulded surround above. This has cusped heads to the main lights and Perpendicular panel tracery.

The middle stage has small cinquefoil-headed lights in the north, west and south walls, that on the west being concealed by the clock-face. The uppermost stage has bell-openings in each face, all paired with a small quatrefoil above except for that in the east face which is a single small opening. The upper part of the tower was rebuilt in 1850, when the parapet was added.

Like many Devon churches, while the tower is a strong vertical accent the remainder of the building is as strongly horizontal. This is partly due to the three parallel roofs of the nave and its two aisles and also to the fact that the chancel roof continues at the same level as that of the nave. The north and south aisles have three light windows of uniform pattern in the north and south walls, three on the south (the second bay being taken up by the porch) and four on the north, as well as similar windows in the west gables and in the east gable on the north side. The windows in the north aisle are a conscious effort of 1850 to unify the church, their predecessors having had tracery of an earlier style until this date. Between the eastern window of the north aisle and the second from the east is a wider stretch of walling than elsewhere, with two shallow buttresses which represent all that remains of the rood stair. The bays are otherwise divided by buttresses as usual, with set- back buttresses at the angles, and the exterior walls were stripped of lime plaster in 1850. The south porch is windowless with a plainly chamfered two-centred arch in the south wall and a sundial above it which was provided in 1826 and fitted with a new gnomon in 1924. The south door itself was renewed in 1899.

The chancel was rebuilt in 1873-4 when it was extended eastwards, and most of the features now date from that time, such as the three-light tracery of the east window and the two-light Decorated window in the north wall. In the east wall, however, are set three small stones carved with shields showing the arms of Tor Abbey, Brewer and John de Mohun. The small vestry on the south was also added at this time and a pent roof placed against the east wall of the south aisle to form an organ chamber.

The interior has been much restored but still has a pleasant atmosphere, partly induced by the number of memorial tablets on the walls and the survival of some old-fashioned features such as a west gallery. The latter was erected in 1830 to replace an earlier one of 1760, and was repaired in 1883. Its predecessor was decorated with shields of arms of which all trace has disappeared, and there were also galleries along the north and part of the south aisles. One remarkable feature of the interior is that the nave furnishings are for the most part carried out in mahogany, the fortuitous result of businesslike churchwardens who in 1850 bought up the cargo of a West Indies trading vessel which wanted to clear its holds quickly, and used the fine Spanish mahogany to provide open benches in place of the "inconvenient pews" (box pews, presumably) "which had disfigured the interior". A contrary note is introduced by the iconostasis and other furnishings introduced at the east end by the Greek Orthodox congregation who have used the church at times.

The architecture is quite simple, of typical Devonshire type with quatrefoil piers with minimal moulded capitals to the four "shafts" carrying plainly moulded arches whose hollow mouldings run without a break down to the floor. One oddity is that while the north arcade has a half-pier as a respond at the west end, the south arcade terminates in a corbel carved as the bust of a bearded man wearing a jerkin. The floors are now carpetted so that their material cannot be ascertained although we are told that the mosaic tiles in the eastern areas were laid in 1850 "to correspond with the former one". The roofs are of half-round profile, being barrel vaults of plaster intersected by moulded timber ribs such as are commonly found in the county. Considerable parts of the ribs appear to be older than the nineteenth century although there are seven different dates at which the roofs were repaired between 1711 and 1927. At the west of the nave a glazed arch opens into the tower space at gallery level, which helps to let light into the building, and there are also small skylights above the gallery, four in number, which evidently post-date 1899 since we are told that an architect named E. Appleton removed earlier dormer windows in that year. Corbels above the eastern free-standing pillars of the nave show the site of the rood beam, and should be read in conjunction with the remains of the rood stair outside the north aisle wall at this point. Some cuts in the capitals of the nave arcade show that parclose screens formerly surrounded the east bay of each aisle. The eastern part of the north aisle forms a family pew and the corresponding part of the south aisle is dominated by the monument to Thomas Ridgeway, d.1604. Above it are two cinquefoil-headed lights, now blocked by the organ chamber.

The eastern parts of the church are rather dark because the organ chamber and vestry on the south side of the chancel allow no windows and the east and north windows are filled with stained glass. There is one step at the site of the rood loft and two more at the position which would be occupied by a chancel arch if there were one In fact the roof runs through from end to end of the church without interruption, although the part over the chancel is enriched by carved and gilded bosses at the intersections of the ribs. The walls of the chancel are crowded with monuments and the sanctuary is panelled in oak. The east window has fleurons round the chamfered edge of the reveal and as in the rest of the church the plaster on the walls is painted white. The old piscina with a hollow-moulded surround was set in its proper place" in the south wall of the new sanctuary in 1874, and an old credence recess with an ogee head was similarly placed in the north wall.