Colaton Raleigh Church of St John the Baptist Basics
Listed building grade 2*
Regularly open
Address
Church of St John the Baptist
Church Road
Colaton Raleigh
Sidmouth
EX10 0LL
Geographical coordinates
50°40’37.1″N 3°18’04.7″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
Hidden away down a lane towards the River Otter is this marvellous little church, a fantabulous fusion of the Medieval and the Victorian with an interior of wonder.
The tower is the only remaining exterior Medieval, 15th century, the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1875 by a talented local architect in Old English Style. The exterior as a whole is worth a good look.
The interior is stunning, the 12th century north aisle arcade has been carefully preserved and a near-matching southern one added. Just to underline the church’s age the Norman font has been carefully preserved as well.
The walls are covered in the most marvellous sgraffito, patterns, symbols and flowers with a couple of saints in the chancel. The whole decoration gets richer and richer as it approaches that chancel, which is wondrous.
There are also a selection of very nice roof bosses, probably medieval with later colouring. Two of them musicians, one a bagpiper.
Most the fixtures and fittings are original and add another layer of charm to this church.
This is a very special church, not least for its sgraffito, but also a beautifully coherent structure fusing different eras with skill and delight.
Well worth a visit, truly so.
Outline
PLAN
- Tower
- Porch
- Nave
- North and South Aisle
- Chancel
- South Transept
- Vestry
AGE
- Parts are late C12-early C13
- Tower is late C15-early C16
- Rest thoroughly refurbished and much rebuilt in 1875 by R M Fulford
- Sgraffito decoration by Vickery of Barnstaple to Fulford’s design
BUILT FROM
- Tower roughly-coursed dressed blocks of brownish-red local conglomerate sandstone
- Beerstone detail
- Rest is similar stone but neater and snecked
- Limestone detail quarried from nearby Ladram Bay
- Slate roof is basically blue-grey
- But includes panels of scallop-shaped purple-coloured slate over the chancel
- Red ridge tiles are alternatively plain and crested
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- 2 stages
- Unbuttressed
- Chamfered plinth
- Soffit-moulded drip courses and embattled parapet
- Semi-hexagonal stair turret projects from the south-east corner
- Rises higher than the main tower
- With its own embattled parapet
- Many Beerstone quoins
- Tiny slit windows
- Belfry windows are square-headed
- 2 lights
- Sunken spandrels and cinquefoil heads
- Smaller similar single light window to the ringing loft
- On the west side
- West side doorway is good late C15-early C16
- Beerstone
- Tudor arch with the spandrels carved as foliage
- Moulded surround
- Hoodmould with the labels carved as a man and woman’s heads.
- Contains C19 double plank doors with ornate strap hinges
- Directly above is a partly-restored 3-light window
- Perpendicular tracery
- Hoodmould
- In the angle of the tower and south aisle is a C19 vestry
- Different in style from the main C19 rebuild
- May be later than 1875
- Built entirely of limestone
- Chamfered plinth
- Parapet with moulded coping over a moulded dripcourse
- The west side includes a plain segmental pointed arch doorway
- Canted corner contains a twin lancet window
- Ogee heads
- Centre of the south side breaks forward very slightly
- Contains a similar twin lancet
VARIOUS
- The rest of the church exterior is1875 work
- Consistent in style
- Chamfered plinth
- Ashlar buttresses have weathered offsets
- Gables have shaped kneelers and coping
- Shallow soffit moulding
ROOF
- Continuous between nave and chancel
- The break is emphasised by coping
- And an apex cross.
- Roof is steeply-pitched to nave and chancel
- Breaking to a lower pitch over the aisles
CHANCEL
- Apex cross
- Transept and chancel walls are enriched by 2 bands of rusticated sandstone ashlar
- 2 windows on the south side
- Arched heads
- Decorated tracery
- 1 light to left and 2 to right
- East end has diagonal buttresses
- Low moulded drip course which steps up below the east window
- Tall 3-light window
- Unusual Perpendicular tracery
- Hoodmould with labels carved as foliage
- Relieving arch above of alternate purple and cream-coloured voussoirs
- At the apex another lancet ventilator
SOUTH AISLE
- 4-window front
- 2 each side of south door
- All square-headed
- With broad bead-moulded surrounds
- Contain simple Decorated-style tracery
- From left to right they are 2 lights, 1 light, 1 light and 3 lights
- Central bay containing the doorway
- Articulated like a porch
- Broken forward very slightly
- Flanking buttresses
- Gable over
- Doorway is an ornate 2-centred arch
- Moulded surround
- Outer moulding on shafts with moulded caps and bases
- Contains double doors
TRANSEPT
- Gabled and flanked by buttresses projecting forward
- Contains 2 tall trefoil-headed lancets
- Above them, in the centre, an oculus
- Decorated-style tracery
- Above that a lancet ventilator
- East side is blind returning to the chancel
- In the corner of transept and chancel a three-sided projection
- Containing a corridor
- Looks like a rood stair turret
- Contains a small twin lancet window with trefoil heads
NORTH AISLE
- Stops just short of the east end
- Its east end contains a 2-light window
- Plate tracery
- Hoodmould with carved labels
- North side the break between nave and chancel is marked by a buttress
- Windows are similar to those on the south side
- Left of the buttress 2 windows
- 2-light window to left
- 4-light window to right
- In the middle a small priests doorway
- In a plain 2-centred arch
- To right of the buttress
- First a 2-light, then a 3-light and another 2-light window
- In the west end another 2-light window with plate tracery
Interior
VARIOUS
- The tower arch is late C15-early C16
- Beerstone double-chamfered arch ring dying into plain responds
- C19 floor to the ringing loft
- Chancel arch is 1875
- Springs from ornate imposts
- Resting on short half-engaged vaulting shafts
- With stiff leaf capitals continued as an impost frieze
- Arch itself is moulded with a sunken soffit carved as square rosettes
- Includes a C19 rood
- Stiff leaf decoration to trefoil-headed doorway to corridor from chancel to transept
- Nave floor is a chequer pattern of red and black tiles
- Encaustic tiles appear in the chancel
- Becoming more common towards the altar
- Plain deal benches from 1875
- Font is late C12-early C13
- Beerstone with a plain octagonal bowl
- Circular stem containing a lower cable mould
- Sitting on a C19 moulded base
- C19 stained glass is quite good
- Some of it looking as if it came from differently shaped windows
FURNISHINGS AND FITTINGS
- Most are 1875 in date
- Altar is oak with a blind Gothic arcade across the front
- Carved and painted in a style similar to the wall decoration
- C20 reredos
- To right of the altar is an arch-headed piscina
- May actually be medieval although the frame and credence are C19
- Oak altar rail with wrought iron standards and scrolled brackets
- Stalls and low chancel screen are timber and Gothic in style
- Both have open arcades
- Screen has poppyhead finials
- Pulpit, lectern and tower screen are similar in style
ROOFS
- Open 3-bay false hammer beam truss roof
- Diagonal plank backing
- Hammer beams terminate as angels holding shields
- Curved braces below are moulded
- Rest on moulded stone corbels
- Aisles have simple lean to roofs
- Chancel has a 3-bay roof with intermediate trusses
- Main trusses arch-braced
- Carved praying angels at their feet
- Standing on moulded stone corbels
- Ribs and purlins are moulded
- Roof is boarded in wagon fashion
- Carved bosses
- Some look as though they may be C15
- But since they are painted this is difficult to prove
ARCADES
- North 3-bay arcade from nave to aisle is late C12-early C13 in Transitional style
- Low and broad circular piers
- Simply moulded caps
- Pointed arches with double-chamfer rings
- Further 2 bays overlapping the chancel are similar
- May have been reset in the C19
- Southern arcade is also similar in style
- But certainly 1875 in date
- Rear column here has a clustered shaft
- More stiff leaf decoration on the eastern respond
- Corner to transept has a half-engaged vaulting shaft
- Another pointed arch to transept
- More stiff leaf decoration to respond
SGRAFFITO
- Perhaps most interesting feature of the church is the 1875 sgraffito plaster wall treatment
- Window rear arches and reveals are exposed stone ashlar
- But the walls in general are clad with plaster
- Buff ground cut back to expose mainly blue, red and green with occasional white and purple
- Arches are framed by running foliage
- East window has a text over
- Arcaded friezes contain various stylised plant forms and geometric patterns
- Arch spandrels include religious emblems and motifs
- Such as the Pelican in her Piety, symbols of the Passion, Agnes Die and floral emblems`
- Decoration becomes increasingly rich towards the altar
- Scheme survives virtually intact
MONUMENTS
- The only monuments are those moved into the tower in 1875
- They are late C18 and C19
- Relatively plain black and white marble plaques
- The best are those in memory of
- Henry Cutler who died in 1836
- Includes a carved heraldic achievement
- That in memory of Susan Foster who died in 1834
- Has a Tudor Gothic frame
- That in memory of James and Sarah Hobbs
- Died 1809 and 1783
- Has a frame of pink veined marble enriched with white florets
Other information
The Transitional north arcade and font are all that remain from the late C12-early C13 church. The rest of the nave, shallow north and south aisles, and chancel were rebuilt in 1875 with a south transeptal chapel, a north aisle chapel, and vestry south of the west tower.
The tower itself is late C15-early C16 and it is Perpendicular in style. The rest was rebuilt in 1875 in Early Decorated style.
The oldest part of the church, the Transitional north arcade, is a rare example of the period in Devon. The late C15-early C16 west tower is virtually intact. The rest was rebuilt in 1875 and is a good Fulford restoration, particularly notable for the internal sgraffito plasterwork scheme.
Interior mostly the result of the 1875 scheme
This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0
