Stoke Fleming Church of St Peter Basics
Listed building grade 2*
Regularly open
Address
Church of St Peter
Church Road
Stoke Fleming
Dartmouth
TQ6 0PX
Geographical coordinates
50°19’26.9″N 3°36’02.4″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
Stoke Fleming is in a beautiful position on a coastal hill, and its tower was used for centuries as a look out and a guide for ships entering the Dart Estuary.
It is a lovely tower too, originally probably 13th century with additions, near-Brutalist, with a fine 16th century granite window.
Inside is a fascinating mixture of styles, with the beautiful 13th/14th pillars in Portland Stone and lovely coloured arches.
Jumping forward, there is a brilliant pulpit by Ethel Pinwill, one of the Pinwill sisters, and a fantastic altar back mosaic by Salviati of Venice.
Also in the chancel is a later, and equally good, altar carved by Violet Pinwill, a real treasure.
The organ pipes were painted with flowers so prettily back in the 19th century, and they are some of the most charming I have seen.
There is also a humongous amount of good stained glass, mainly Victorian with some early 20th century, which is well worth spending a goodly amount of time enjoying. It really is very good.
More too… the earliest brass memorial in Devon and another brass inscription to Elias Newcomen, great-grandfather to Thomas Newcomen, one of the famous inventors and developers of the steam engine that led to the Industrial Revolution.
A rustic Norman font begs for attention, alongside the whole church, a delightful place to visit.
Outline
PLAN
- North porch,
- West tower
- Nave
- North and south aisles
- North and south transept
- Chancel,
- Vestry
- Organ chamber on north side of chancel
AGE
- Probably C13
- Remodelled and enlarged in circa early C14
- Altered in C15
- Restored in 1871-2 by J.P. St. Aubyn
BUILT FROM
- Roughcast rendered
- Except for the tower which is local slate rubble
- With granite and red sandstone dressings
- Slate roofs
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- 3 stages with weathered stringcourses
- Slightly tapered
- Set-back buttresses with set-offs
- Moulded embattled parapet
- Polygonal star turret on north side
- Battlements rising above the main tower
- Small red sandstone window slits in the stair turret
- 4-centred arch doorway at the bottom with a C19 door
- 2-light bell-openings with slate louvres on all sides except the south
- C15 granite 4-centred arch west window without cusping and with hoodmould
- West doorway
- Now blocked
- Granite 2-centred arch
- Single roll-moulding
- Label stop
VARIOUS
- Nave roof is carried down over the aisles
- Chancel and transept roofs lower
- All with gabled ends and late C19 crested ridge tiles
- Nearly all the windows were replaced in 1871 in Bathstone
- Except for those in the tower
- And the east corridor on the south side of the south aisle
- Which is a 2-light window with cusped heads
- The mullion having been removed
- And a 4-centred arch 2-light window dated 1810
- On the south side of the chancel.
- The 1871 windows are all Gothic
- North side and east windows are of 3-lights with geometric tracery
- Transepts have 3-light perpendicular style windows
- South aisle windows have straight heads and ogee cusped lights.
- The priest’s doorway on the south side of the chancel is blocked
NORTH PORCH
- Cl9 common rafter roof
- A chamfered 2-centred arch of dressed slate
- Inner doorway is C14
- Moulded 2-centred arch
- Hoodmould
- Door is Cl9
Interior
VARIOUS
- All interior walls plastered
- Except for west tower which has exposed stone rubble
- The tiled floors are circa 1871-2
- Tall stone rubble 2-centred tower arch has chamfered imposts
- Benches in the nave, aisles and chair stalls are of 1871-2
- And replace box-pews and galleries at the west end and in the south aisle
- 1861 organ by Bryceson Brothers of London
- Rebuilt in 1887
- Pipes were painted in 1874 with flowers
- The clock in the north aisle is of circa early C19
- Carved polygonal pulpit of 1891
- By Miss Ethel Pinwill
- 1916 lectern is a life size figure of an angel carved in wood
- 1984 lectern by Nigel Watson is a seagull on a rock
ARCADES
- 4-bay (plus crossing arches) north and south arcades
- Arcade bays have massive squat grey limestone (like Purbeck marble) piers
- Set square
- Large round shafts on the chamfered corners
- 2 fillets in between
- Bases and capitals are moulded
- Double-chamfered 2-centred arches above
- Of pink sandstone and rather incongruous
- The fifth east bay is the transept cross arch
- Has slender moulded piers
- With a shaft at each corner
- And 2 fillets and a recessed shaft between
- Moulded bases
- Beerstone capitals finely carved with foliage
- High moulded Beerstone 2-centred arches
- And a second capital above the pier capitals at the springing of the arch
- The north one more richly carved
- The south east respond capital is moulded
- The north east one is carved with arms of the Carews
ROOFS
- The roofs were all replaced in 1871-2
- The nave is arch braced on corbels with wind-braces
- Transepts also have arch braces and wind bracing
- Aisles have common rafter roofs with curved bracing
- Chancel roof is the most elaborate
- Arch braced with trefoils between the queen struts
- 2 tiers of wind bracing
FONT
- Norman
- Pink sandstone
- Plain round bowl with roll moulding below
- Circular stem
- Moulded base
- Below which there is a late base with spired corners
- Set on a late C19 Devon limestone plinth
- Lead lining has marks for the hinge and bolt
CHANCEL
- Chancel arch has no capitals
- Above the springing it appears to have been rebuilt
- With an asymmetrical 2-centred arch
- Remains of a piscina and what might be an aumbry
- 1911 carved wooden Gothic altar rail
- Altar also 1911 has 3 carved panels on front with palm tree columns between
- Early C20 Gothic style marble reredos with mosaic panels
- Marble-faced east wall of sanctuary inscribed with the Commandments
STAINED GLASS
- Most of the window tracery was replaced in 1871-2
- Late C19 east window
- South east window of chancel of 1877
- To Alice wife of E. St. Aubyn rector
- South west chancel window of 1866
- South transept window circa 1860 and N transept window
- Signed by Lavers Barraud and Westlake of London 1871
- In north aisle a window to George Parker Bidder 1882
- An infant prodigy, engineer and mathematician and president of the Devonshire Association
- Another of 1901
- South aisle windows of 1888 signed by Cox, Sons, Buckley London
- And another of 1888
- One early C20 window
- The other windows in the north and south aisles are of circa 1871
- West tower window is of early C20
MONUMENTS
- C13 recumbent effigy under tower arch
- Formerly in chancel
- Probably Eleanor Mohun, wife of Sir John Carew
- Clad late C13 costume.
- Brass at east end of nave to John Carp and a lady
- Probably his grand daughter
- 1361
- Said to be the oldest dated brass in the West Country.
- Reset under south side of chancel arch
- Brass to Elias Newcomen, 1614
- In chancel
- Memorial to George Goodridge 1781
- There are many other C19 memorials to local families
- Some signed by the masons
Other information
Origin probably pre-Conquest since the former dedication was to St. Ermund, earliest surviving fabric is probably C13.
William de Maccombe is mentioned as the rector in 1272. Creswell suggests that the church was reconstructed in circa 1312 when the aisles were added to the earlier C13 cruciform church partly absorbing the short transepts.
But the arcade piers appear to be C13 with rather incongruous arches similar to the chancel arch and the transept crossing arches and piers seem to be C15 and therefore would have been rebuilt. The tower is probably of C13 origin.
The north porch was probably built in the C17 and the vestry and organ chamber were added either in 1861 when the first organ was built or in 1871-2 when the church was restored, reroofed and reseated by J.B. St. Aubyn
The west tower: 6 bells cast in 1777
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