Gidleigh Church of the Holy Trinity Basics
Listed building grade 1
Regularly open
Address
Gidleigh
Newton Abbot
TQ13 8HR
Geographical coordinates
50°40’48.5″N 3°52’59.3″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
A true moorland church, granite inside and out, on the edge of the high moors and sitting in a so very pretty churchyard with a burbling brook running though it. Just relaxing for a time on the greenery makes the trip worthwhile, though the trip itself makes the trip worthwhile as well; stunning views through the hedgerow gaps as the lanes twist and turn and rise and fall into the Dartmoor foothills.
Inside the roodscreen is 16th century with more recent colouring, giving an idea of how colourful these screens were back in the day. Some marvellous Renaissance carvings too.
The wainscoting has Victorian transfer paintings. Some will consider them sacrilege, while others (I for one) find them delightful little windows into 19th century taste, worship and homage to the past.
There are a couple of pieces of medieval stained glass, St John and the Virgin Mary. St John especially is a delight.
The granite extends to the font (C15) and, most unusually, the pulpit and lectern (both 1853 and locally made).
It is a small, peaceful church, somewhere to sit and breathe with all the communities of the ages, still likely clustered around this prettiness. Where else in heaven or earth could be better?
Gidleigh has deep history, it was even mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great, and it seems so outside of time that that could be only yesterday, standing in the beauty of nature beside the churchyard brook.
Outline
PLAN
- Nave & chancel under a continuous roof
- South aisle to nave only
- C19 vestry west end
- West tower with internal stair
- North doorway behind C19 porch
AGE
- Saxon or Norman origins
- Rebuilt in late C15 early C16
- Possibly a single phase church
- The tower maybe earlier.
- Some C17 windows
- C19 additions
BUILT FROM
- Large coursed blocks of granite ashlar
- Some granite stone rubble patching
- Granite ashlar detail, most of it origina
- Slate roof (formerly thatch)
Exterior
TOWER
- Tall unbuttressed west tower
- 2 stages
- Embattled parapet, missing its corner pinnacles
- 2-light belfry windows
- West side has a 2-centred arch doorway
- Moulded surround
- 3-light window with Perpendicular tracery
NAVE & CHANCEL
- Mostly square-headed 2-light windows
- Lights are round-headed
- Sunken spandrels
- Hoodmoulds
- One in the nave replaced by a tall C17 3-light window
- Chamfered mullions
- Along the side of the nave a number of C17 and early C18 graveslabs
- All clearly legible
CHANCEL
- East end of chancel has a 3-light window
- Elliptical head and hoodmould
- Centre light only has a pointed arch head
- Similar windows to south aisle
- Priests door in north side of chancel is a segmental pointed arch
VESTRY
- C19 vestry
- Flat-topped
- Embattled parapet
- Transitional-style detail
PORCH
- C19 gabled north porch
- Roof of granite slabs
- Norman style outer arch
- Similar north doorway
DOORS
- All the doors replaced in C19
Interior
ROOFS
- Late C15/early C16 continuous ceiled wagon roof
- In the nave only the ridge purlin shows
- Chancel has moulded ribs and purlins
- Some plain (maybe C19 replacement) carved bosses
- The south aisle roof is the same as the nave
NAVE & AISLE
- 3-bay arcade with monolithic octagonal piers
- Soffit-chamfered caps
- Low arches
- Double chamfered arch rings
- Tall chamfered tower arch
GENERAL
- Plastered walls
- Stalls and nave seating now C20 chairs
- Pulpit and lectern were made in 1853
- Granite
- Carved in Gothic style by John Agget
- They are most unusual
- South chapel altar is a C17 oak table with heavy turned legs
CHANCEL
- The reredos (formerly from Church of St. Michael, Chagford) of 1868
- C19 oak wainscotting in sanctuary
- C16 in style
- Plain C19 Gothic timber altar rail
FONT
- C15 granite font
- Octagonal bowl
- Moulded stem
- Chamfered plinth
- Probably C17 ogival oak hood
ROODSCREEN
- Original
- Altered in mid or late C16
- 5 bays with central doorway
- Blind ogival tracery on wainscotting
- Windows have delicate Perpendicular tracery (Pevsner’s Type A)
- It seems that when rood gallery was removed (blocked door to stairs on north side) the coved parapet was removed
- Spandrels then filled with applied foliate motifs separated by distinctively carved posts, all Renaissance in style
- 2 bands of the original undercut frieze reused but some secondary gessowork
- Rear is devoid of ornamentation
- Missing the C19 paint which adorns the front complete with transfer pictures of saints
STAINED GLASS
- East window of aisle includes some C15 glass
- Fragments of St John and Our Lady
- With flowers in a delicate grisaille
Other information
An attractive and little modernised Dartmoor church
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