Stokeinteignhead Church of St Andrew Description
- Lovely hillside church in a very pretty village
- Beautiful red and white stone pillar arcades
- Fascinating carved pillar capitals
- One of the oldest rood screens in Devon
- Good Victorian carving in the chancel
- A fine medieval priest brass next to the altar
- A pretty heart-shaped French brass in the floor next to the lectern
- Well carved medieval roof bosses
Stokeinteignhead Church of St Andrew
We would be forgiven for assuming that Stokeinteignhead’s name was connected to the River Teign the northern boundary of the parish, but not so; originally it was Stoke in Ten Hides, a hide being a Saxon term for the amount of land that a team of oxen could plough in a year.
Though the water relationship boomed, especially as the parish also borders the sea eastwards; fishing and seafaring rocketed as the Late Medieval got its legs on, boats going as far as Scarborough in Northern England and probably even over the Atlantic to Newfoundland for cod.
An early fair and market, wool and exports both national and international, meant that when this babe was built around about the turn of the fourteenth century it was a right little pretty… and it continued becoming prettier.
The south door
At the entrance the red Devon sandstone peeks through the render, rhyming with the rich brown of the inner door, a mild delight that churching days are full of.
Inside Stokeinteignhead Church
Inside Stokeinteignhead church those same colours dance so very deliciously, tamped down just enough by the white of the upper arcades and the glint of gold in the rood screen.
Back in the day all the walls and the pillars would have been plastered and lime washed; cold, bare stone was so not on the high fashion list… Nowadays modern heating has helped change our tastes.
When the restorers stripped the plaster (a popular renovation practise) in the 1894 restoration they put in that modern heating, without it they might have thought twice.
The wonderful arcade
Not all is local sandstone though, those pillar capitals are Beer Stone, a twenty-five mile (forty kilometre) coastal voyage away, easily carved when fresh out of the ground, hardening as it ages.
Luke in stone
Three of them down the west end are dramatically different from the rest, so different that there is a possiblity they came from an earlier church.
This one here, St Luke’s winged ox, loving that perky head, is a clue that this might be so; on the other side is St Mark’s lion but the other two Evangelists’ symbols are missing… and the four symbols were nearly always depicted together. It would be extremely unusual for only two gospel writers to be represented.
Angels and saints
Other capitals follow another pattern, angels on the corners and a saint in the middle, here St Andrew the church’s patron saint.
It is tempting to see this as a depiction. It is not. It is far more than that.
Andy is in a doorway surrounded by traditional foliage , a type of carving that was probably elsewhere in the church then… this kind of doorway embellishment was often around narrow entrances; I have seen it on priests’ doors, their entry into the chancel area, the sacred space where Christ comes in the Eucharist.
And the angels either side of the doorway show that this too is an entrance into the sacred, a beautifully coloured one too back in the day… Through Andy, through prayers for his intercession, for guidance, for help in meeting the Divine, the faithful can enter the sacred, become closer to the Godhead.
And here folk would pray, might appeal for intercession… but never praying to a saint for direct help, they were not little godlings, never that; saints could help folk through the door, they never controlled it.
And it is no coincidence that Andy was the patron saint of fisherfolk, no coincidence at all.
Female saints
And the same with these saints, all ladies, Catherine, Apollinaire, Barbara and Dorothy, all with their own unique attributes. Often people saw a particular saint as their own personal helper, with local customs and traditions playing a role as well.
Catherine and Barbara help with sudden death and various diseases, Catherine also was special to maidens, Apollinaire was the toothache gal (she is holding a tooth in those pincers), and Dorothy was midwives, gardeners and brewers, which seems a very interesting mix… Get drunk, plant a garden, call a midwife… very Devon that!
Though to be fair they covered a larger range than laid out here; what is important is that they interceded and aided with daily domestic life troubles, but never cured or miracled stuff away, only the Divine does that. No min-gods here, no siree.
Foliage carving
The pillars capitals in another style are equally amazing, wonderful Devon foliage in a go-large style that is rare and very good indeed, down to the veins in the leaves.
They have faces too, but not saints, these seem to be peeking from their park life, living in the undergrowth, going underground.
Stokeinteignhead rood screen
Unlike this babe, definitely no peeking here, proudly displaying the beautiful and with a heap to be proud of at that.
For one it is one of the earliest screen in Devon, late fourteenth century is the expert view, 1380-90 is a more exact reckoning but that might be little too exact. When I first saw it I thought it was Victorian, it is in such good condition and so unlike the far more common, and equally lovely, later screens.
A few differences introduce themselves… There is no vaulting to hold a rood loft nor any sign of removed vaulting, the openings are square headed and the tracery is oval-ish rather than Perpendicular style.
There was a rood loft though, for sure; the upper rood stairs door opens onto the top of the screen. On these older rood screens the loft was often supported by columns in front of and/or behind the actual screen.
The design differences are easily explained by its age, it was built towards the end of the the Decorated period of the Gothic style, when fashion was not so up and down, or Perpendicular as the following style is known. It is also part of a group of fifteen of similar age and somewhat-similar style scattered at random around Devon.
It used to be more colourful for sure, the wainscoting painted panels were removed in the nineteenth century just for starters.
Why this survived and was not replaced by a more modern one a hundred years later or so is an unknown; Stokeinteignhead seems to have been a rich enough parish to afford a more in fashion one. Best guess is that they just adored this beaut, and it is very, very adorable.
The rood screen door
Those doors for one, very pretty little things, and the way all the carving flows across the screen is far more horizontal than later screens.
The detailed carving
Then the actual carving details, the way that arch just above the door is like a foliage laden bough, with a couple of fruit-like leaf bundles drooping downwards.
This is does not have the delicacy of later work Devon rood screen work, possibly because the later tradition developed more in-county while this is arguably more ‘European’.
That is not to say that this particular carving does not have its own entrancements.
Leaves on the cornice
Having gone down that not-so-delicate road, I now have to reverse ferret very rapidly because the cornice carving is astoundingly delicate; those detailed leaves for one, some of the best I have seen, and then the twisting in the actual grapevine and the bird’s feathers. Brilliant work.
An ‘Inhabited Vine Scroll’ is the official type descriptor, the birds represent the soul being nourished by the vine, the blood of Christ.
But an Instagram commenter says it better…
It is like a priceless bracelet which Christ has prepared to adorn his bride, the Church; a precious design of gold and wood, only it chirps, twitters and burgeons with new life, forever more.
The sanctuary
Through the screen is the chancel and sanctuary, a neat, friendly space…
The East Window
With a magnificent East Window by Hubert Blanchford in memory of WWI showing Christ in his glory and all the nations of the earth gathered below, angels clustering around the gorgeously arrayed Christ with the four Archangels above.
More lovely carving
The glorious woodwork continues, here is some lovely nineteenth century foliage work on the choir stalls, a cluster of oak leaves and acorns…
Hello handsome!
And this happy chappie with kaleidoscope eyes, blissing out on the delights of the church and the joy of the visitors.
A good medieval brass
Though this dude is a deal more serious and a deal older into the bargain.
The dating is debatable, it was first thought to be from 1497, taken from a tomb of John Symon, a rector of this church. Pevsner, a later expert, gives it an earlier date of around 1375 which would make it the earliest brass in Devon.
The Rev is sailing fully flagged as one would expect on a funerary depiction. The brass has been moved, that is for sure, though the actual date I cannot comment on. Brasses only really began late in the 1200s, becoming more common in the 1300s but still very expensive, and this is a quality piece; if from 1375 then the Rev must have had some serious moolah.
Roof bosses ahoy
More faces are above amongst the enchantingly carved roof bosses, most Late Medieval with the occasional Victorian interloper, as the lower left beauty shows.
Top left is indeterminate, possibly the Virgin Mary but without the original colour and not being sure of its original position… When roofs were repaired or renewed then roof boss musical chairs often played out.
Lower right is a ‘Green Man’, an unfortunate name applied to them in the 1930s suggesting that they have something to do with some ancient pagan pre-Christian god of the countryside. They do not. For one thing a church was Christian, anything non-Christian was a major no-no unsurprisingly.
Then there is the fact that we know next to nothing about the many pagan traditions of England, especially down here in the south west where Christianity seems to have spread relatively early, almost definitely starting from around 400 AD, possibly even before 200 AD as suggested by a Classical writer (Tertullian).
Most importantly, paganism itself was not a romantic Christian mini-me with nature worship replacing the church service; it was, on the whole, a negotiation with various gods and godlings on how to get the best for oneself or your group, which might involve killing others, cheating, lying, head hunting or even human sacrifice.
This roof boss is likely showing Adam, the first human, who traditionally was buried with a seed from the Tree of Life in his mouth. This seed sprouted, became a new Tree of Life, and was chopped down to make the cross that Christ died on; Christ was viewed metaphorically as a new Tree of Life, with his sacrificial death redeeming the Original Sin of Adam’s rejection of the Divine, and showing us the path back to the Divine and everlasting life.
Did folk actually believe this seed in Adam’s mouth as a true story? Probably not, for most at least. A metaphorical truth, deeply spiritual as here, is as powerful as an objective fact; both have their places, and as the scientific process as we know had not yet even got out of bed by this time…
The Four Evangelists
The gospels are full of these metaphorical truths, woven together using Old Testament writings and constant demonstrations of the delight of the Divine.
These roundels of the Four Evangelist (the gospel writers) symbols capture the wildness and the wonder of their scriptures; rich colours, characterful beings, ragged details all making for enchanting designs.
Old Heraldry
This object is more of a mystery.
This is either late sixteenth century of early seventeenth century circa 1580-1620 and a heraldic device with a winged angel. Beautiful.
Marham Church Antiques, Paul Fitzsimmons
By heraldic device we mean that its exact usage is not clear, but it does display the coat of arms of a family, held here by an angel with the Chi-Rho up top, an ancient symbol of Christ, and the alpha and omega either side of that, all set against a velvety sea of black. At the bottom is the family crest, an indeterminate black bird.
How this device was used is not clear. It could be an early hatchment, paraded at a funeral procession which would mean that it is an early example, with an unusual design; most hatchments are a simple display of the appropriate coat of arms painted very soon after the actual death.
Alternatively it might have been placed above the private pew of a local family, or a whole gallery reserved for the same.
A fine and rare piece of work, for sure.
The French Connection
Another sweetness, one definitely connected to memory and death, is this brass heart for Elizabeth Furlong who died in 1641; it is quite the puzzler at that.
On the one hand it is in Old French with a comma after every word and Elizabeth, along with her and her husband’s families, had no connection with that country that we know of; on the other hand it is similar to other French brasses that are actually in France.
It is also very out of context, it has been taken from a tomb that had other burials, thus the beginning of the inscription:
Here also is placed the body of Elizabeth Furlong, the daughter of Thomas Tawley of Dittisham, gent, and wife of Francis Furlong, the son of Francis Furlong, gent…
Did Elizabeth and a child die in France, and this was brought back later, maybe even as an antique in the nineteenth century? Was there a French brass worker in Stokeinteignhead making this delightful hearts? Or… There is no clear solution.
Except it is beguilingly heartfelt and a true delight.
Peace
It is a marvellous church here, beautifully positioned, deeply rural, full of history and wonder, from those ancient carved pillars to that glorious rood screen, the intricate woodwork and those heartfelt memorials, it contains multitudes, the parish folk reaching way, way back.
A quiet space as well for folk of all beliefs, the sunlight highlighting and shadowing as it changes through the day, shades of soft darknesses adding enchantment and mystery.
A place to enjoy, to remember, to be…
A proper church in truth.
