Halwill Church of St Peter and St James Basics
Listed building grade 2*
Regularly open
Address
Church of St Peter and St James
Halwill
Beaworthy
EX21 5UH
Geographical coordinates
50°46’24.5″N 4°13’52.8″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
A very gentle and peaceful church, beautifully rebuilt in the 1870s by a local architect apart from the tower which is Medieval.
The soft light plays wonderfully through this one, especially as it has two transepts and a crossing arch to shade the shadows. An easy church to sit and relax in.
A lovely, simple granite font greets us at the entrance, medieval, a goodly connection to all the previous churches on this spot.
The pulpit is just wonderful, carved in 1910 and a copy of a local Jacobean one, it is more re-creation than a slavish copy. Fruit, flowers, foliage and some very dramatic Elemental Powers all cavort together. Outstanding.
There is a lovely altar back with some painted Victorian figures, simple and honest, just right for the new church as it was.
The Victorian piscina is well worth a good few minutes too, with its heavy carved stone lightened by a tiled back making a real work of art.
Nice floor tiles, good poppy heads, all round a church well worth visiting and especially enjoying its gentle peace and quiet.
Outline
PLAN
- West tower,
- Nave
- Chancel,
- North and south transepts
- North east vestry,
- South porch
AGE
- C14 or earlier west tower
- And north nave wall
- The rest entirely rebuilt 1870-9
- Samuel Hooper of Hatherleigh the architect
BUILT FROM
- North wall of the nave stone rubble
- Tower stone rubble brought to course
- The rest squared on stone rubble
- Freestone dressings
- Slate roofs with crested ridge tiles
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- Unbuttressed
- Battlemented
- 2-stage
- Projecting rectangular north east stair turret with slit windows
- East wall of the turret is flush with east wall of the tower
- Turret has a sloping slate roof
- Tower pinnacles have an unusual convex inner profile
- Terminate in crocketted finials
- Chamfered west door is probably C19
- 2-light square-headed cusped C19 window
- Hoodmould and label stops
- 2-light chamfered belfry openings to all 4 faces of the tower
- South face has small cusped 1-light window at bellringers’ stage
EAST WALL
- Angle butttresses with coped set-offs
- 3-light Geometric east window
- Hoodmould and carved foliage label stops
- Chamfered string rises under the sill
CHANCEL SOUTH WALL
- Trefoil-headed 1-light windows
- Chamfered architraves
TRANSEPTS
- 3-light windows with intersecting tracery
- Hoodmoulds and carved foliage label stops
- The south transept has a 1-light east window
- Similar to those in the chancel
NAVE NORTH WALL
- Central 3-light intersecting traceried window
- Hoodmould
- Reused medieval carved head label stops
- Flanked by two 2-light C19 Decorated
- uncusped windows
- Y tracery
WEST WALLS
- An angle buttress with coped set-offs
PORCH
- Steeply-pitched gabled roof
- Chamfered stopped doorway below a shield carved with “1870″
- The porch is flanked by 2-light Geometric Decorated windows
- Hoodmoulds and carved foliage label stops
VESTRY
- North east vestry
- Asymmetrical east gable
- Chamfered stopped east doorway
- 2-light square-headed stone mullioned north window
Interior
NAVE
- Rendered walls
- Edge of the render decorated to draw attention to the medieval openings
- Tall medieval chamfered tower arch
- With pyramid stops
- Abutment to the north and south faces
- Richly moulded chancel arch by Woodye
- With moulded responds and carved capitals
- 1879 brattished stone pulpit with bold tracery panels
- 1879 plain square-headed bench ends
- Painted Royal Arms dated 1742 in frame on nave wall
ROOFS
- Fine late medieval open wagon roof to the nave
- Presumably extended by Woodyer
- With moulded ribs
- An unusual variety of carved bosses
- Wall plates carved with rustic green men
- Unceiled wagon roof to aisle with moulded ribs
- Boarded wagon roof to chancel
- With moulded ribs and small bosses
ARCADE
- 4-bay arcade
- Easternmost bay a Woodyer copy of the late medieval slender piers
- Corner shafts carrying moulded Tudor arches on foliage-carved capitals
- Depressed medieval segmental arch
- Presumably resited between chancel and south chancel chapel
- With C19 parclose
- Hagioscope pierces the same wall
FITTINGS
- Very complete Woodyer fittings to chancel:
- Stone and local marble reredos
- Symbols of the evangelists painted in gold
- 1879 tiling
- Poppyhead choir stalls
- Communion rail with iron standards
- Low timber chancel screen with traceried panels
- C19 brass fittings in chancel possibly also by Hardman
FONT
- Unusual possibly C12 font;
- Round bowl on a cylindrical stem
- Decorated with 2 carved profile heads
- Mouldings on the base
- C19 font cover in the Romanesque style
STAINED GLASS
- Important set of ten Hardman windows with memorial dates between 1862 and 1910:
- A series which adds to the coherence of the interior
- South doorway is a late C15-early C16 granite 4-centred arch
- Moulded surround and rams head stops
- Plank door is C19
Other information
It is very unusual to find a church with a complete set of windows by the same maker, and this church is well worth seeing for this reason alone let alone the other delights, especially the roof bosses
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