Cornworthy Church of St Peter Basics
Listed building grade 1
Regularly open
Address
1 Green Cl,
Cornworthy,
Totnes
TQ9 7HW
Geographical coordinates
50°23’17.3″N 3°38’52.5″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
A wonderful light-filled church on the edge of the Dart estuary, with near-clear large windows catching the gorgeous northern light; the south aisle is against the side of a steep hill. It really is delicious, with the every detail highlighted.
And to complement the light it has an almost classical interior, with good restorations in the18th and 19th centuries.
From this time the box pews come, a very handsome set especially against the recently laid flagstone floors.
Also in the nave is a very good 18th century pulpit, very well displayed.
The windows have delicate wooden tracery in the Early English style, and boy are these a pleasure too.
The chancel is a model of simplicity, very well though out with a rectangular 20th century granite altar taking up the main space.
Bringing a splash of colour to the party in the chancel is an early 17th century monument to Tom and Liz Harris, original colours, both figures well depicted and two of their kids kneeling in front.
Then there is a 15th century roodscreen, battered and bruised but hanging in there with great tracery and later Renaissance painting on the wainscoting. The parclose screen is worth a gaze or two as well.
The simple south chapel has got an awesome angel wing wood sculpture by Jilly Sutton. It is so good to see more recent art in a church, especially of this quality.
On the outside is the fascinating porch with slate benches around the walls and a lovely outside entrance arch.
There is also the dark stone that the church is built from; so very dramatic.
All in all, a couple of hours spent breathing in the beauty here is a privilege and a pleasure.
Outline
PLAN
- Nave
- Chancel
- 5-bay north and south aisles
- West tower
- South porch
- Vestry: east end of the north aisle
AGE
- C15 (font is C12)
- Early C17 south porch
- Refitted in late C18 and circa 1835
- Other work of later C19
BUILT FROM
- Slate rubble with slate dressings
- Hoodmoulds are of granite
- West doorway of the tower is red sandstone
- Slate roof
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- Tall 3-stage
- Set-back buttresses with set-offs
- Embattled parapet with moulded coping
- Below parapet a moulded cornice
- Stages also have weathered string courses
- String courses and cornice continue around the polygonal stair turret at the centre of the
south side - Turret rises above the tower
- Embattled parapet and window slits
- Belfry has a single-light lancet to the left (east) of the stair turret
- Other sides have 2-light bell-openings with straight hoodmoulds
- 3-centred arch lights
- Slate louvres
- Middle stage has a clock face on the west side
- Bottom stage has a chamfered 2-centred arch red sandstone west doorway
- Pyramid stops
- Door is C20
- 3-light 2-centred arch window above
- Its slender intersecting tracery is a C19 replacement
ROOFS
- Nave, chancel and north and south aisles have been reroofed under a single span
- Gabled east end with slate coping
- Simple Latin cross at the apex
- Moulded slate wall plates and chamfered slate plinth moulding
NORTH AISLE
- 6-bay north elevation
- Left hand (east) bay is blind
- Others have 2-centred arch windows with granite hoodmoulds
- Tracery replaced with slender wooden intersecting tracery of circa 1835;
- Buttresses with weathered set-offs between the windows
- End buttresses are diagonal
SOUTH AISLE
- The south elevation is similar to north
- Except that bay-5 towards the east end has a large polygonal rood stair
turret - And bay-l has a gable-ended porch
- East end window blocked circa 1611 when the Harris monument was built
- In a projection on the south wall of the chancel in the angle with the south aisle
CHANCEL
- East end window has a wide 4-centred arch window
- Granite hoodmould
- Quatrefoils in the stops
- Early C19 replacement tracery has been replaced again in the C20
- Wooden intersecting tracery
- East end has diagonal buttresses on the corners
- Another buttress between the chancel and north aisle
- Weathered set-offs
SOUTH PORCH
- Circa early C17
- Round arch dressed slate doorway
- Broad ovolo moulding is on the west face
- Inner doorway has a moulded granite round arch
- Quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels
- Convex stops
- Hoodmould is missing but there is a corbel above for an image
- Round-head flush-panel door is early C19
Interior
NAVE
- Tower arch
- Unmoulded 2-centred arch
- Chamfered imports
- Fine C18 brass candelabra
- Circa 1835 panelled box pews in the nave and aisles
- Though some say late 18th century
- West end of the pews 4 large round corner ports
- Fluted pinnacles
- Probably formerly supported the gallery which has been removed
- Dado panelling on the aisle walls continued in the recess under the windows as seats
VARIOUS
- The internal wall of the church are plastered
- Exposed Beerstone rear-arches are hollow chamfered
- Floors are quarry tiled and concrete paved.
- Nave, chancel and aisle roofs are ceiled
- May have early roof structures concealed
- The altar is late C20 and there is no reredos
ARCADES
- 5 -bay
- Granite (except for the responds which are Beerstone) monolith A-type piers
- Moulded Beerstone 4 centred arches and moulded Beerstone capitals
- Some with foliage carving on the south side and flowers on the north side
- 2 western most arches on the south side and the easternmost arches and their capitals are granite
- Piers have been mutilated to take the rood screen and pulpit
ROOD SCREEN AND PARCLOSE
- C15
- Full width of the church
- Canopy is missing butvotherwise largely intac
- Remains of colour
- Including some foliage decorations in the traceried wainscot
- The wainscots of the parclose screens are concealed or replaced by early to mid C19 panelling
PULPIT
- Good early C18 octagonal pulpit from Ashprington church
- Felded panels
- Pilasters on the corners
- Stem has been rebuilt
- Fine sounding board, original to the church
- Carved cornice
- Ogee dome
- Gilded trumpeting angel finial
- Brass candelabra
FONT
- Good C12 red sandstone
- Short circular stem
- Moulded base
- Hemispherical bowl carved with a frieze of palmettos
- Narrower frieze above of saltire crosses
SOUTH CHAPEL
- Chamfered 2-centred arch piscina in the south wall
- Unmoulded hagioscopes at the east ends of the arcades
SOUTH PORCH
- West entrance
- Ceiled circa early C17 wagon roof
- Moulded ribs
- Around the inside a slate bench
- Walls limewashed
STAINED GLASS
- Mid C19 coloured glass in the margins of the north and south windows
- Mid C19 patterned stained glass in the west window
- East window has clear glass
MONUMENTS
- Chancel
- Large early C17 monument to Sir Thomas Harris
- Dated 1611
- Beerstone
- Chest has large brackets with 2 kneeling figures
- Above the chest 2 recumbent effigies in contemporary costume
- Corinthian columns
- Supporting an entablature with a strapwork frieze
- Modillion cornice and a pediment with volutes
- Pilaster flanking a cartouche with an inscription
- Slate monument to Lucy Sperway
- Died 1687
- Another to Frances Newton
- Died 1744
- Slate and marble monument to Thomas Trist
- Died 1742
- Gothic monument to John F P Phillips
- Died 1865
- Large early C17 monument to Sir Thomas Harris
- East end of the north aisle
- Monument to Rickman
- Died 1685
- Wreath around the inscription
- Pilasters
- Round pediment with arcs and a skull below
- Monument to Rickman
- South chapel
- Large marble wall monument to John Seale
- Died 1777
- Fluted Corinthian columns
- Above, signed by W. Pinder of London
- Large marble wall monument to John Seale
- North wall of the north aisle
- Alabaster First World War memorial
Other information
All that remains of the early church is the C12 font. The existing church is C15.
The aisles might have been built at different periods in the C15 and the south porch is probably an early C17 addition.
According to the Exeter Faculty Books the Church was entirely refitted in 1788 (Hoskins) but the box pews and window tracery appear to be C19 and Cresswell suggests that there was a restoration in circa 1835 when the box pews gallery and windows were more likely to have been installed.
White’s Directory of 1878 states that “the church was recently cleaned and beautified throughout at a cost of upwards of £400”, but it seems to have largely escaped Victorian restoration.
Bells: The Church Good Commissioners reported 3 bells in the tower. The six existing bells were cast in 1781 by John Christopher Pennington.
The interior of the tower was not inspected, but it is said to contain a late C18 clock (Church Guide).
This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0
