Torbryan Church of the Holy Trinity Basics
Listed building grade 1
Regularly open
Address
Torbryan Hill
Newton Abbot
TQ12 5UR
Geographical coordinates
50°29’24.0″N 3°39’53.4″W (enter these in your smartphone navigator)
Devonchurchland says…
Torbryan church is a marvel. It is very rare to meet a church built from the ground up in only 20 years in the 1400s, and this consistency in design makes for such a powerful space with its large clear windows and tall ceilings. It really has the most powerful atmosphere.
Then there is the medieval wood carving, the roodscreen, the pulpit and the altar, all Devon style, all very nice indeed. Their main colouring is more recent, 19th century, but this only shows just how colourful they probably were back in the day.
The rood screen also has a complete set of saint paintings from the late 1400s. They are gorgeous. Well worth looking very closely at these to really enter the medieval world.
There is a wealth of medieval glass way up in the window lights, the top of the windows, so if you bring binoculars you will have another fun time entering the medieval world from a different angle.
The East window is also a stunner, 1930s this one, saints, angels, Christ, all with extreme style.
The box pews are also so very elegant. Interestingly, they surround the old 16th century ones, so the seating is still the thick planked somewhat squashed style from that era
The south door and the west door are centuries old, texture and age, a grand combination, and the font is a strong one here.
Have a good look around on the outside too. The windows, the carvings on the tower, the beautiful situation…
But always there is the graceful interior space. Absolutely tremendous.
Outline
PLAN
- Nave
- Chancel
- North and south aisles
- West tower
- South porch
- Vestry at east end of north aisle
AGE
- Early C15
- C19 vestry
BUILT FROM
- Roughcast rendered stone
- Slate roof
Exterior
WEST TOWER
- Three-stage
- Tapering, with weathering
- String-course above each stage
- Battlements at the top
- Each Corner surmounted by a pinnacle with small shrines in each face
- Rise off corner stones with tapered tops
- Some reworking may have been involved
- Each face is flanked by a buttress set off each corner
- East buttress of south face having in the second stage an ornate empty niche
- With ogee head and finial
- Remnant of similar niche in west buttress
- In centre of south face a five-sided stair turret with slit windows
- Rising to a crenellated top
- In west face a doorway with two-centred arch
- Heavy three-quarter-round moulding
- Whole set in a rectangular moulded frame
- Above it is a straight-headed early C16 window
- Two segmental-headed lights
- Hood-mould with square carved terminals
- In second stage a single-light window with two-centred arch
- Belfry has a two-light opening with two-centred heads to the lights in all but the south face
- Which has a similar single-light glazed window at either side of stair turret
NAVE
- North wall has 2 debased Perpendicular windows (presumably of 1685)
- At the chancel end is a break in the stonework beyond which is a single C13 lancet window
- Partly obscured by the vestry
WINDOWS
- Aisle windows
- Identical Perpendicular windows
- Four ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights
- Four to north and four to south
- East end of north wall of aisle is a further 3-light window
- Slightly different design
- Matching the south chancel window
- The mouldings of these two windows in turn match those of the 3-light windows at the east end of each aisle, these differing in having a large rose in the head of the arch
- The south aisle window is mainly a C19 or C20 replica
- North chancel window and the west window of the south aisle are simpler
- Two ogee-headed cinquefoil lights
- The east window is of five lights
- Matching the design of all but one of the aisle windows
NORTH AISLE
- West end a rectangular stair turret (leading to aisle roof)
- Splayed corner,
- In north wall a five-sided stair turret to former rood loft
- Outline of small blocked doorway with round head visible to west of latter
CHANCEL
- South wall a priest’s doorway
- Moulded and with two-centred arch
SOUTH PORCH
- Two-storeyed with angle-buttresses
- Three-sided stair turret (to upper chamber)
- In angle with south aisle
- Inner and outer doorways moulded and with two-centred arches
- Interior has stone seats at either side
- White-limestone fan-vault
- trefoil-headed and quatrefoil panels
- Ribs carved with four angels
- Upper storey has straight-headed two-light window
- Hood-mould
- Lights with ogee cinquefoiled heads and carved spandrels
AISLES AND PORCH
- Battlements – these being carried round the stair turret
Interior
NAVE
- Five two-centred arches on each side
- The piers of diamond section with an attached column at each angle
- Wave-mouldings in between
- Capitals carved with foliage
- 2-centred tower arch with chamfered imposts
PISCINAS
- East end of south wall of south aisle
- Two-centred arch
- Cinque-foiled
- South wall of chancel, the former with
- Ogee-headed
- Cinque-foiled
ROOFS
- Aisle roofs flat with moulded intersecting beams
- Wagon-roof to nave and chancel, possibly restored
- Parish register says roof first ceiled in 1807
FONT
- Octagonal with plain bowl
- Each face of shaft with a cinquefoil-headed panel
- Early C17, ogee-shaped wooden cover
SCREENS
- Medieval Roodscreen
- Across nave and aisles
- Rood screen has five 2-centred arches across nave
- Three across each aisle
- Arches are of four ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights
- Corresponding panels beneath carrying an almost complete set of Pre-Reformation painted figures
- Head-beams carved with fruit and foliage
- Parclose screens of slightly different design across the eastern arch of each aisle
- Each have doorway with segmental head to east
- 2 windows to west
- Three ogee-headed cinquefoiled lights under a two-centred arch
STAINED GLASS
- Coloured medieval glass in heads of most of the windows
- East window by Archibald Nicholson
- 1930s
PULPIT
- Seven-sided
- Elaborately carved
- Imitation medieval base
- Pulpit itself said to be made up of pier casings from the rood screen
- Shaft carved with foliage in the centre of each of five faces
- Flanked by trefoil-headed panels
PEWS
- Complete set of medieval pews in nave
- Eight each side of centre gangway
- Bench-ends as far as can be ascertained carved with trefoil-headed panels
- Enclosing these a complete set of early C18 box-pews
- Raised-and-ovolo-moulded panels
MONUMENT
- On north wall of chancel
- Slate plaque in a limestone frame
- William Peter of Tornewton (d.1614) and wife nicely (d.1600)
- Flanking piles are decorated with pendants of ribbons and a skull
- Round arch, scrolls and coats-of-arms
Other information
Go just for the design, if nothing else. And there is a lot else, a lot of a lot.
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