Combeinteignhead Church of All Saints Basics
Listed building grade 2*
Regularly open
Address
Church of All Saints
Combeinteignhead
Newton Abbot
TQ12 4RA
Geographical coordinates
50°31’59.9″N 3°33’03.3″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
A lovely red stone church that sits at the head of a valley leading down to the Teign estuary, with an enchanting hillside churchyard into the bargain.
The red stone continues inside with the pillars and arches, with most of the walls well plastered along with the roof. It is a very pleasant interior.
The Norman font is a fine design, cinched by a carved cable running around it then flowing upwards into a fine patterned bowl.
The 15th century rood screen is a beauty, very original, with good arches and vaulting.
There is a small collection of very good Late Medieval bench ends, three of them with animals carved on top: a fox stealing a goose chased by a dog, a possible bear or monkey in a friar’s cowl and a lion.
The bench end sides are beautifully carved with saints and even wild men, or woodwoses.
The sanctuary is a fascinating restoration of 1851 with good stone carving.
Another strong fascination is a 17th century tomb moulded from clay, a real rarity, which works surprisingly well. I do not know another of its like in Devon, let alone the country.
On top of this there are a few pieces of good Victorian stained glass, making the whole church a delight to visit.
Outline
PLAN
- Nave
- Chancel
- North and south transepts
- Three bay north and south aisles
- West tower
- North west porch
- South east organ chamber
AGE
- C12 font
- Medieval fabric partly C13
- Extended by aisles
- Probably in the C15
- Tower described as having had a Decorated west window but looks C15
- Restorations of 1851(date on porch)
- And 1887 (architect R.M. Fulford)
BUILT FROM
- Coursed red sandstone
- With Beerstone and Ham Hill dressings
- Slate roof
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- Battlemented
- Diagonal buttresses
- Tall corner pinnacles
- Embattled polygonal north east stair turret
- Shallow-moulded west doorway
- Below a three-light C19 Perpendicular west window
- Two-light traceried belfry openings on all four faces
- Cusped one-light opening at bellringers’ stage on the north side
AISLES
- Three bay buttressed north and south aisles
- With C19 Perpendicular three-light windows
NORTH PORCH
- In westernmost bay of north aisle
- 1851 date on the label stop of the moulded outer doorway
- Diagonal buttresses
- Quatrefoil windows to the returns
- C19 arched brace roof
- Good C19 inner door in a moulded door frame
CHANCEL
- Largely 1851
- Deep diagonal buttresses
- Carved stone eaves cornice
- Three-light C19 Perpendicular east window
- Carved label stops
- Priest’s door with moulded frame on south side
- Embattled 1887 organ chamber on north side
- With a three-light cusped north window
TRANSEPTS
- Diagonal buttresses to north and south transepts
- C19 Decorated north and south three-light windows
- Carved label stops
- Blocked opening on east wall of north transept
- Blocked lancet to east wall of south transept
- Visible from the interior
Interior
VARIOUS
- Plastered walls
- 1887 timber chancel arch
- Plain rounded tower arch
- Three-bay north and south arcades
- Octagonal piers and capitals
- Rounded double-chamfered arches
- C12 font
- Probably re-cut
- Palmette motifs on the bowl
- Saltire crosses decorating the rim
- Heavy cable moulding above the stem
- C19 timber drum pulpit
- Open traceried panels
- Set of late C19 bench ends
- Dado tiling to the aisle walls
- A rather startling glazed pink
- Added in 1907
ROOFS
- Unusual junction between transept and aisle roofs
- Aisle roof wall-plate over-sailing the transepts
- Supported on upward curving braces on corbels(q.v. Stokeinteignhead)
- Not clear whether this is a copy of the medieval arrangement
- Ceiled wagon roofs
- Mostly of 1851
- Roll-moulded ribs
- Small uniform carved bosses
- Chancel roof with cross ribs
- And wall plate carved with cherubs’ heads
CHANCEL
- C19 fittings
- 1851 reredos with blind tracery
- Stone cresting
- Flanked by gabled commandment boards
- North and south stone seats to the sanctuary
- Below heavily crocketted nodding ogee arches
- Low stone communion screen
- Pierced with trefoils
- 1887 choir stalls
- Carved ends of an unusual profile
- North side of the choir an 1887 stone canopied recess
- Associated with a two-light hagioscope into the transept
- Arched opening into the chancel from the south transept
- Blocked in 1851
- Re-opened as a hagioscope in 1887
ROOD SCREEN
- Five-bay
- Renewed coving
- Narrow, sharply-pointed openings
TRANSEPTS
- North transept
- Became the Gregory Fokeray chantry in the C15
- Has a rounded, chamfered piscina in the east wall
- And four C15 benches with two frontals
- The bench ends crowned with crouching animals
- And carved with figures and tracery
- South transept
- Has a tomb recess in the south wall
- With a C17 slate ledger stone fixed beneath the arch
MONUMENTS
- North transept
- Notable monument to the Hockmore family
- Detail large-scale and rustic
- Said to be modelled in local clay(Thorne)
- Rustic ogee arch above a chest tomb
- The arch decorated with pomegranates
- Crowned by an achievement
- Chest with armorial bearings in wreaths divided by bead and reel moulding and half-palmettes
- With a brass inscription panel in a Purbeck matrix under the arch
- The lid of the chest commemorates Gregory Hockmore
- Died 1571
- The ogival arch is said to be 1613
- Commemorating Alice Hockmore(Thorne)
- Two large slate ledger stones
- With coloured armorial bearings in relief
- Fixed to the transept walls
- Commemorate William Hockmore, died 1626
- And Gregory Hockmore, died 1655
- South transept
- A number of late C18 and C19 black and white marble wall tablets
- Including a good late C19 tablet
- Gabled and crocketted
- Signed T.H. Knight, Teignmouth
STAINED GLASS
- Remnants of an 1850s or 1860s glazing scheme
- In the head tracery of the aisle and transept windows
- 1880s west window
- Probably by Drake of Exeter
- East window 1905
- By Drake of Exeter
Other information
An illustration and descriptions of the church prior to 1851 indicate that the origins of the chancel and transepts are Early English (Thorne).
The three bay aisles are probably C15, the date at which the tower may have been rebuilt or remodelled. Few Early English details survive, most of the windows are 1851 Perpendicular and the chancel was largely rebuilt and extended at the same date; the nave, south transept and aisle roofs were replaced and the north porch was rebuilt.
A more sensitive restoration by Robert Medley Fulford in 1887 involved repairing the screen, a new timber chancel arch, stepping up the chancel, providing the north east organ chamber and re-seating the nave.
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