Thrushelton Church of St George Basics
Listed building grade 1
Regularly open
Address
Thrushelton
Okehampton
EX20 4QY
Geographical coordinates
50°40’02.6″N 4°11’54.3″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
A delightful and truly atmospheric church, simple, modest, powerful… I could go on and on. It is also set in one of the prettiest churchyards in Devon.
The outside has some beautiful stonework, from the possible 13th century chancel to the 15th century tower with its rustically patterned mixture of the local rust-coloured stone and granite.
The windows deserve a good long appreciation too.
Inside it is a beautiful example of a modest chapel’s slow transformation into a medieval church, with a lot of ‘make do and mend’ as should be with its rural background.
The old plastered walls also contribute to the whole feeling that what we see is very much to what the local folk saw when they completed various stages of the building, before the now-vanished decoration.
A fine old granite font and some foliage roof bosses all help too.
The chancel was tidied up by Victorians and suits the church’s ambience so well too.
This is truly a church to stay awhile, both in the gorgeous churchyard and enjoying the ageless peace inside.
Outline
PLAN
- The original plan may have been a C13 nave and chancel
- The chancel arch rebuilt in the C14 when the south aisle was added
- The south chancel chapel was either remodelled or added in the late C15
- When the south aisle was re-roofed
- And the nave and south aisle were refenestrated
AGE
- Some of the walling may be C13 or C14.
- C14 chancel arch and 2-bays of the arcade
- C14 or C15 tower
- C15 south chancel chapel arch and 1 bay of the arcade
- Some C14 fenestration,
- Modest C19 restoration
- Largely Perpendicular
BUILT FROM
- Stone rubble with slate roof
- Granite and freestone dressings
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- 3-stage battlemented
- Only 1 string course
- Projecting rectangular north east stair turret with a lean-to roof.
- Quoins and octagonal corner pinnacles with obelisk finials.
- Chamfered pointed west doorway
- 3-light C19 freestone Decorated west window with a hoodmould.
- 4 chamfered 1-light belfry openings, 1 to each face.
- South side has an additional similar opening
NAVE
- Tall for its length
- Two 2-light square-headed late C15 windows
- Cusped lights
- Hoodmoulds
- Blocked window high up at the west end of the north side may have lit a former west gallery
CHANCEL
- Masonry of small dimensions
- Quoins at the north east corner
- Straight joint at junction with south chancel chapel.
- East window is a 3-light traceried Decorated C19 window
- Hoodmould and replaced mullions.
- No windows to the north side
SOUTH AISLE CHAPEL
- Under a lower roof than the aisle
- Similar 3-light square-headed window of the late C15
- South east angle buttress.
- The east window is a 3-light reticulated granite window
- Hoodmould and carved label stops
SOUTH AISLE
- Quoins to the south west corner
- Change in plinth on the south side.
- A 3-light reticulated traceried C14 west window
- Moulded architrave
- Hoodmould, iron stanchions and saddle bars intact
- South side the aisle has a 3-light square-headed Perpendicular late C15 windows
- Cusped lights
- Hoodmould and carved label stops.
- To the right of this window the remains of a polygonal rood loft stair turret
PORCH
- Coped gable
- Circa late C15 doorway
- Moulded square-headed architrave
- Carved label stops.
- Ceiled waggon roof
- Only the carved wallplate and outer ribs survive.
- Stone benches with timber seats.
- East wall is an C18 cartwheel that caused the death of Valentine Spry in 1788.
- Chamfered stopped arched stone inner doorway
Interior
CHANCEL
- Modestly furnished with a panelled dado
- Early C19 commandment boards
- Timber reredos carved with quatrefoils and a star of David
SOUTH AISLE AND CHAPEL
- 3-bay arcade
- 2 bays to the nave
- 1 to the chancel.
- The 2 nave bays have double-chamfered arches springing from low octagonal piers.
- The chancel bay has a shallow-moulded arch carried on responds
- Hollows and shafts and moulded capitals
- Easternmost unfinished.
- Arch into the south chancel chapel has no respond on the north side
- Carried on a moulded capital above the stub of a shaft.
- South side the respond has a hollow and shaft moulding
- Moulded capital
NAVE
- Plain octagonal font may be C15 on an octagonal stem and base.
- 5-sided C19 drum pulpit on a stem has traceried panels.
- Timber eagle lectern is probably early C20.
- Plain C19 benches.
- The doorway to the stair turret is blocked
- Tall narrow tower arch
- Chamfered inner arch carried on moulded corbels
- Double-chamfered granite chancel arch
- Supported on 5-sided piers with chamfered capitals
- Chancel arch may have been reconstructed
ROOFS
- The nave roof is a plastered barrel
- Moulded plastered wallplate.
- South aisle is a good circa late C15 ceiled waggon
- Carved wallplate, ribs and bosses
- The south chancel chapel has a roof of similar design but different in detail.
- The chancel roof is a ceiled wagon roof
- Brattished carved wallplate, moulded ribs and carved bosses
- Additional rib gives a ceilure effect immediately to the east of the chancel arch
Other information
Chapelry, formerly to Marystow parish church.
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