Church Heritage Record 615402

Nave of four bays with aisles and clerestory, south-west tower from the previous church; south-west choir vestry next to the tower; chancel with polygonal apse, south chapel and north vestry and organ chamber.

The present church was designed by William White and built in 1868; the tower survives from an earlier church of 1843 designed by G. Abbot of Barnstaple and D. Mackintosh of Exeter.

The story of the building of the church is strange. It was one of two churches built in the town in the middle of the nineteenth century to relieve pressure on the mediaeval parish church of St. Peter. In 1824 a committee was formed to look into the provision of additional church accommodation but nothing was done until in 1844-6 the church of St. Mary Magdalene was erected to designs by Benjamin Ferrey (it was demolished in 1978). The Revd. John James Scott a curate at Pilton had been a prime mover in this scheme and contributed £2,000 towards the cost. But his impatience eventually led him to withdraw his support and he embarked on an independent project. The site was given by Charles Roberts of Ellerslie, Bickington, and the foundation stone was laid on 29 August 1843 by Dr. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter. The church was designed by G. Abbot and D. Mackintosh and consisted of a cruciform building in the Perpendicular style with aisleless nave, short transepts and chancel and a tall south-west tower and spire. The contractors were Philip Carter (mason) and Richard Gribble (carpenter). The building was consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter on 22nd June 1845 and had cost about £6,000, all of which was provided by Mr. Scott in addition to £1,000 endowment. The spire seems never to have been completed.

So hasty had the construction been that the foundations began to give way, and in 1868 the whole building except the tower had to be taken down and rebuilt, to the bitter regret of Mr. Scott who had crippled his financial affairs by paying for its erection. The Revd. C. Haggard, Vicar since 1861, paid half the cost and the rest was raised by subscription. The foundation stone was laid by the Bishop of Honolulu on 20 October 1868 and the church was rededicatedon 12 January 1870 by Dr. Temple, then Bishop of Exeter. The building occupies the same site, though extending a little further west than its predecessor, and the west window, said to have been based on Merton College Oxford, was retained in the new building. No other feature was (save the tower), although the building materials were re-used. The tower was apparently lowered by eight feet, which may refer to the removal of the base of the intended spire. The choir vestry was built in 1902.

Of the original church of 1843 only the tower remains. The rest of the building consisted of a nave with shallow transepts and rather a short chancel, and vestries, all with details in a Perpendicular style. The tower seems to be based on Somerset examples, but by comparison with most it is too tall for its breadth, giving a rather attenuated appearance. It is divided into three stages by stringcourses and has set-back angle buttresses at the corners. The foundation stone is at the north-east corner. The lowest stage is windowless and the middle stage has one cinquefoil-headed opening under a label in each face. It is with the belfry stage that the ornamentation becomes more elaborate. First there is a band of quatrefoils. running round the whole tower and the buttresses, and above this are the tall paired bell-openings, each of two slender transomed lights with louvres of stone pierced with quatrefoils. These stand under ogee gablets with crockets and foliate finials, and between the gablets there are pinnacles. At the top of this stage is a parapet, with a band of quatrefoils on each face and then an open arcade with square crocketted pinnacles at the corners and subsidiary pinnacles set diagonally in the middle of each face. The stonework inside suggests that a spire was intended, and it is recorded that the tower was reduced by eight feet in 1869 when the church was rebuilt, so possibly a start had been made on the spire which then had to be abandoned, and finally removed.

The tower is joined to the south-west angle of the later church, with an arch through a buttress giving access to the lowest stage. The west gable of the nave has a large five-light window in the upper part and a doorway in the lower. The flanking walls of the nave have two-light window with Perpendicular tracery in the clerestory and small two-light windows in the aisles, the bays being marked by buttresses. There is a door in the south aisle and the vestry beside it is virtually square with a flat roof within a moulded parapet. The aisles do not reach quite to the west end of the nave, stopping about five feet short of it.

The chancel has five windows in the apse, all with uniform trecery designs of two lights. The north vestry and organ chamber are amalgamated into one rectangular building under two hipped roofs within a moulded parapet and to the west of this there is a strange construction at the end of the aisle which links it to the organ chamber. The vestry has a north doorway giving access to the car park, and a continuation of the line of this wall forms a boundary for a small detached part of the churchyard to the east of the chancel. The chapel on the south side of the chancel stands under a pent roof and is of two bays. There is a waterspout here carved in congruously as an angel with a chalice, while on the nave are angels with musical instruments. The rainwater heads are dated 1843.

The interior of the church, like the exterior, does not readily suggest the name of White except, perhaps, in the construction of the roof which shows that architect's penchant for structural ingenuity. This has broad arch braces to each bay crossed by lesser frames rather like hammerbeams. Intermediate timbers form a simpler pattern above each of the clerestory windows. The arcades have quatrefoil pillars with moulded octagonal capitals and moulded arches of rather loose design. The alleys are paved with stone and there are wooden boards under the pews. The aisles are narrow, simply for access to the pews and the small windows are placed within archos which descend lower than the openings, giving the (erroneous) impression that the lower parts of the windows have been walled up. The walls are plastered and painted and the window reveals have the stonework exposed. An arch at the east end of the south aisle opens into the south chancel chapel which was repaired and refurnished in 1912. It has a blind east wall and two two-light windows in the south wall.

The chancel arch has imposts which are moulded and provided with several attached shafts with foliated capitals, and the arch itself is also much moulded. There is one step at this point and a low stone screen with the Caen stone pulpit on the north which, like the font, was re-used from the earlier church. The chancel is paved with black and white marble squares set diagonally and has two arches on the south communicating with the chapel. On the north two arches are filled with organ pipes, with a doorway leading into the vestry in the lower part of the eastern arch. Further east is a credence shelf of black marble under a trefoil arch with foliate stops. The windows of the apse are set quite high in the wall and have bands of quatrefoils below the sills. The principal feature of the chancel is a reredos in the form of a triptych erected in about 1960. The corbels of the chancel roof are carved as angels with books, those in the nave as angels with shields. In the apse the roof timbers rest on stone shafts with foliate capitals.