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Home / Basics / Halwill Church of St Peter and St James Basics

Halwill Church of St Peter and St James Basics

Description
Gallery
Basics
Tiles Floor Geometrical Victorian 19th Century Hawill

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)

Click here for more directions and church information

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

This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

Halwill Church of St Peter and St James Description Halwill Church of St Peter and St James Gallery

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