Church Heritage Record 639134

6-bay aisled nave, south porch at west end.  2-bay chancel with organ chamber north of choir; chapel north of sanctuary; tower south of choir; vestry south of sanctuary.  Crypt/ basement underneath the east end.

Nave estimated to be c 15m (50ft) x 4.5m (15ft), chancel 8m long (26ft).

Truro is the county town of Cornwall, and the site of the first new cathedral to be built after the Reformation. The church of St Paul was built in 1845 to cater for the growing population of the town, paid for by William Mansell Tweedy, a local banker. The parish was carved out of St Clement’s in 1865.  The nave and south aisle of this first church survives, the north aisle was added in 1889; the east end is of 1882 to 1884, designed by J D Sedding, the tower was completed only in 1910 by Sedding’s nephew to his design. The furnishings mostly date to the 1920s and 1930s, the sanctuary was “improved and beautified” in 1932. In 1968 the rood screen was removed and the nave altar platform inserted, involving some reordering. Toilets have been inserted into the north porch. The church is now in the same benefice as St Clement’s.

The church is built in the Perpendicular style, even in the oldest parts of 1848, and used inventively for the Sedding work; Pevsner considered that the chancel exterior, rendered in an inventive Perpendicular free style, exemplifies “Sedding at his best”, and there is truth in this. 

This is a church of two halves, the aisled nave a simple long block under one roof, the side walls pierced with 3-light 2-centred windows with simple Perpendicular tracery. The west end has a 5-light nave window and 4-light window to the south aisle, the north aisle west wall is blind. All roofs have coped gable ends. Apart from the embattled porch to the west bay with round-arched doorway and empty niche over (the blocked north porch doorway is plainer with a pointed doorway with hoodmould), all the detail is reserved for the east half of the building.

Considerable vertical emphasis is provided by the powerful 3-stage embattled tower. This has an octagonal tower stair higher than the tower itself (a nice West Country touch), angle buttresses and corner statues of Sir Richard Grenville, Sir John Elliott and Bishop Trelawney; there are also three niches (with two carved statues surviving of Christ and St George, St Paul has been taken down) to the second stage south wall, over a pointed 6-light traceried window, in turn over a flat-headed basement window of four lights with a transom.

The symmetrical east end has central projecting chancel with offset angle buttresses to embattled corner turrets, flanking a large 7-light traceried window with remarkable tracery (see the cover photograph) over a 7-light basement window. The flanking organ chamber and chapel have moulded parapets, 3-light windows and similar buttresses, the side walls have pairs of 2-light windows over basement windows, all with tracery and hoodmoulds, and mid-floor and sill strings.  All in all this is a tour de force.

The interior is less dramatic, though it is an impressive space and immaculately kept.  The tall 6-bay aisle arcades have A-type (Pevsner) piers with 4-centred arches to the north arcade, and round arches to the south.  Engaged shafts and 4-centred arches between choir and chancel, transepts and tower; round choir and chancel arches; waggon roofs in different designs with widely-spaced bosses to nave and north aisle; moulded ribs with square plaster panels to south aisle. Flat coffered ceilings with moulded beams to the transepts and tower. The chancel roof is gilded and painted with close-spaced bosses, said to have been done by Solomans of Truro.

The walls are whitewashed. At the west end there is a plain holy water stoup and a painted wooden frame for a noticeboard on the wall behind the font. The nave is fully pewed with attractive dark-stained pitch-pine benches with square traceried ends and panelled backs. Some benches have been removed in the east bay of the nave to allow for a nave altar, raised on a granite-flagged platform. The floors are of stone flags, with good multi-coloured flags in the chancel and ihs symbols in the sanctuary, mirroring the roof. The organ pipes are displayed in the arch to the organ chamber at the end of the north aisle, the organ has a highly decorated case which encloses a vestry. There is a chapel dedicated to St Clement north of the choir, sparsely furnished.

A painted rood figure is suspended from the chancel arch, which was donated in 1939. There are very good quality choir stalls with tracery ends and fronts and poppy-heads, installed in 1893 by Robinsons of London (by them also the lost rood screen), and matching open wooden screens with Perpendicular tracery and carved cornices between the chancel and the flanking rooms, donated from this time up to the 1920s by parishioners. The glazed screen in the pointed arch to the vicar’s vestry, previously a chapel, was erected in 1968.  There are three steps to the sanctuary, the stained glass in the huge and low east window imparts colour to the east end, almost acting as a reredos.