Christow Church of Saint James the Apostle Description
- A beautiful granite church in the Teign Valley
- An old Norman font
- Some fine medieval bench ends
- A well-restored 16th century rood screen
- Fascinating old roof bosses
- Excellent memorials in the chancel
- Some enchanting stained glass
- A Charles II coat of arms with local connections
Christow Church of Saint James the Apostle
There is a question about Christow’s name, a slight puzzlement about its meaning.
It is called Cristenestow in 1244, the earliest written evidence, while in 1443 the church is called ‘Sancte Cristine de Cristawe’, later Saint Cristine of Christow, taking into account that spelling back in the day was usually based on the sound of the word… and heavy dialects made this so much more fun.
‘Stow’ is the Anglo-Saxon word for a holy place, usually one that existed before those same Anglo-Saxons rocked up, Celtic or, more accurately, Britonnic.
It used to be thought that the Cristene part meant ‘Christian’ as in Christian Holy Place; it is more likely however, especially considering the 1443 church name, that it refers to Saint Christina, a third century virgin martyr.
Now though we have a later fifteenth century structure with various restorations and repairs down the ages, the last major one in 1862.
The west door
One of those restorations resulting in this grand granite doorway, the west door to be exact, from 1680 (that carved date on the central arch is a bit of a giveaway).
It has a dead classy simplicity to it, and the later wooden door adds just the right amount of soft colour.
Inside Christow Church
Inside Christow church is more granite and more soft colours. Those benches come mainly from the Victorian restoration and the granite is Late Medieval.
Plus those cafe tables, I love them; listen closely and the sound of smiley chattery-yappery bounces softly around the church from the local tea and cake enthusiasts … Jollity and home-made cakes are grand dancing partners.
A Norman font
Earlier is this Norman font, scalloped as the term is, the plinth is more modern.
Kate Clarke, in the Baptism Fonts of Devon, points out that in this particular design the flat outer edges of the scallops are usually in the same vertical as the upper band; here though their very top edges slope inwards and then there is about fifteen centimetres of rough vertical.
She suggests the top stone is more modern though cannot give a date but it could also have had the outer few centimetres chiselled off for reasons lost in time.
It has survived though, and is a good beast.
Wood carving
What has also survived amongst the Victorian reseating is some marvellous Late Medieval woodwork.
The left hand bench end is brilliant, dynamic pomegranate with beautifully twirled foliage, a master carver really letting his genius show.
The right had carvings are from the front of the benches, a wonderful meditation on the nature of leafage, seemingly, more muted than the pomegranates and mighty pleasing for that.
A fusion pulpit
The pulpit is mainly Victorian but has incorporated sixteenth century blind tracery most excellently. It dates from 1923, replacing a previous deal (pine) pulpit that had only been installed sixty years before in 1863, the same time as the seating.
Christow rood screen
The nineteenth century was when the very nice rood screen was restored and repainted. It is difficult to tell what is original and what is restoration under the paint, but the top cresting is definitely not medieval and everything under it could be.
Though that is taking into account the fact that originally it would have had vaulting that supported a rood loft for folk to walk on.
The wainscoting
It is well coloured, giving the idea of just how gaudy these screens were when they sailed fully flagged, just take a glance at the Holne screen if you fancy a sight and a half.
One of the main differences here is the lack of gilding along with the blue; blue was a very expensive colour, made from Afghanistan lapis lazuli or possibly Spanish beetles, and if used was for the rood, the crucifixion, and the loft where folk looked after the same.
Of course there were probably saints painted here, as still exist on many Devon screens.
Seeds and quatrefoils
The quatrefoils along the bottom are a true delight, every one different, every one carved with deep dedication.
Quatrefoil means four leafs’, so each one has four leaves around the outside. Inside are plant or flower carvings, and as a whole they represent seeds I venture.
Because look here.
Seeds and seedlings
At the bottom the seeds, the quatrefoils (red circle), then sprouting upwards are seedlings (green), two leafed as they so often are, and on these are also little blossoms (pink circles). Surrounding all is grapevine, representing the blood of Christ, life.
So the wainscoting is not just an exercise in shapes and geometry, though it is that as well, but also a representation of nature, of life, seedlings bursting forth, the past (seeds), the now (seedlings) and the future (blossoms)… And putting all time together in one image is a very medieval thing to do.
Reason and emotion, geometry and the organic, together a defining aspect of humans, reason being the difference between us and animals as was then thought.
Another view
This beaut is part of the rood screen that was left unpainted, and look at that wainscoting again; plants again, seeds, seedlings and blossoms, all time together.
The sanctuary
Through the screen, the sanctuary has been well restored with a nice stone altar back, probably originally with religious texts on the bare spaces now painted over.
It also has a good east window.
The East Window
A very dynamic one by Drake of Exeter showing the Resurrection,Crucifixion and Ascension.
The Exmouth memorials in Christow Church
Along the chancel walls is a flood of classy memorials for the local aristos whose founding father was Edward Pellew the first Viscount Exmouth; his is the rather gently elegant classical design from 1833 above.
Which is a bit of shock because ‘gentle’ and ‘elegant’ are two words that probably never came within a hundred miles of Eddie; I mean that in a very respectful way.
Because he led quite a life, joining the navy at the age of fourteen, working his way up from midshipman to Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom by massive feats of arms and extreme bravery, enough for half a dozen men rather than just one.
He was made a baronet for saving nearly six hundred folk from a shipwreck in Plymouth Sound, including a 3 month old baby, and became a viscount for leading a fleet that freed thirteen hundred white slaves from Algiers. On the way he seemed to battle and beat pretty well anything that floated and sassed him, from battleship to rowing boat.
Freeing slaves and saving babies, eh? Gotta love George, not sure he would want a chat with lily-livered moi, but definitely the kind of hombre to protect our shores.
The second Viscount’s memorial
His son’s memorial is far more dramatic, very much a nepo babe who got where he did with his Dad’s help and was sidelined from his navy career because the ships he commanded tended to mutiny… Not something the navy were gung-ho about.
Oddly, this memorial celebrates his father’s achievements rather than his own, Algiers and the release of the slaves especially. Feels like some curious family dynamics there, but far too long ago to know.
The design is marvellous though, a mast at full sail and various displays with a freed slave up top. Love it.
Wonderful Late Medieval roof bosses
Before the Pellews’ time are these Late Medieval gents up on the roof indulging in a touch of jangling, what we might call gossiping but has a somewhat more nuanced meaning.
Here it is in the bible in the English (somewhat) of these dudes’ time:
Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling;
Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say , nor whereof they affirm.
1 Timothy 1:5-7 KJV
Jangling is better thought of as vain, foolish, empty talk, which covers a bit more than gossip; talking about things that we know nothing about might be one meaning.
Nowadays we use jangling to describe the unpleasant (usually) sound of metal on metal, discordant and annoying, which gives a good dive into the kind of talk that it was referring to.
And we know these two gents are indulging because Titivillus, the demon who records all that jangling, is up top taking notes.
Boys, you are so busted.
Also, Devon seems to have far more representations than other regions of men nattering away as opposed to just women, for reasons that are not clear, objectively accurate as it is.
Sue Andrews suggests that this is because there were far more recorded women’s guilds supporting churches in the south west, and as these bosses were chosen by parishioners… Well, women working together make for less misogyny, this is true.
Titivillus keeping watch
Here is that lad Titivillus again I venture, with the two features that normally define him: Big ears and tongue out, speech and hearing, all he needs to police us.
Though this critter looks adorable rather than menacing.
A Green Man
There is also this ‘Green Man’ and regardless of meaning, is he not he brilliantly carved. We can almost feel those branches bursting through his teeth, the heavily frowned brow, the wrinkled cheeks and mouth, it is a fine work.
And here surely this is Adam, into whose mouth, according to a medieval tradition, was placed a seed from the Tree of Life. From this seed grew a tree, and from that tree the cross of the crucifixion was made, transformed into an instrument of redemption by Christ himself.
The Green Man is indeed Everyman, humanity itself, in all of his death-bound and life-renewing stages of exuberance, torment and ecstasy. The message in such depictions seems clear, rather than confused or mysterious — the twig(s), or seed(s), or kernel(s) that were (according to different versions of the popular medieval tale) planted or placed beneath the tongue of Adam… will shoot forth new life. The sin of the world has been atoned for and renewed life is restored for the world, for mortal man, and for all of God’s unlimited creation.
The ‘Green Man’ in Medieval England, Stephen Miller, on this site.
Which explains this face, Adam but also Everyman, desperate, dead, in pain but redemption is here.
More grand bosses
There is a mighty engaging variety of similar-aged roof bosses in this church, the well-carved plant, the eagle, the bearded chap the lion and more. Just bring binoculars or a good zoom.
Ancient glass
Here another figure, medieval glass this time, a member of the clergy, probably a priest taking into account his well embroidered robe.
It has been broken and reassembled, and is part of a little collection of repaired medieval glass.
A many storied coat of arms
To get back to earthly affairs, this plaster Charles II coat of arms is a solid piece of work, fine details like the lion’s mane and that lively unicorn.
These objects have often been painted again and again through their lives, and the detail would potentially have been finer when first unveiled.
The making is a tale in itself. An oak frame joined together, and across this frame lathes, thin strips of wood two to three centimetres wide, carefully nailed. These lathes had gaps between then.
The back of the first layer of plaster squeezed through these gaps, spreading out behind the lathes binding with the wooden structure; plaster layers were built up from there, carefully moulded using specialised tools.
Lastly of course the painting, though whether it was originally painted or not is arguable.
Though by present modern times the whole
… had suffered complete failure of the oak studwork frame and most of its lathing. It was removed from the wall in a hanging frame, and the failed support was replaced with a stainless steel framework. This allowed the original lathing structure to be imitated.
McNeilage Conservation
It was also a very political statement, after the horror of the civil wars.
Showing dedication to the new monarch was probably not so much about the man himself as about peace and recovery, and whoever or whatever could ensue that.
Which the Stuarts did not, to be fair, though that was in the future with the conniving Jimmy II having to get out of town pronto when William of Orange landed in Devon in 1688, seizing the throne and starting his own dynasty on the understanding that the monarchy would be well caged.
The church wardens
Below the coat of arms is this plaque to the church wardens who got it made, connected to those civil wars through Thomas Moore; in 1684 he signed ‘The petition of John Rendle of Christow, Devon’ in which John Rendle (the petitioner) asked the king for a pension:
That your petitioner served his late Majesty King Charles the First of blessed memory in the late unhappy wars under the several commands of Captain Hugh Stawell and Captain Peter Bound and was therein much wounded and bruised. And forasmuch as your petitioner is now grown near seventy years’ old and very infirm, he is not able to work or maintain himself and family as he ought by means of his wounds, bruises and other disabilities aforesaid.
Which proves, amongst other things, that statistics, dates and interpretations have an emotional universe behind them all to easy to ignore.
Tommy died in 1686, buried in the Christow church that he so loved, and while we do not know the date of Christopher Hoore’s death we do know he had deep connection to Christow and the surrounding area. His earliest recorded ancestor seems to have been born in Bridford, a neighbouring parish, in around 1489 and a Nicolas Hore was born in Christow around 1572.
Chris’ descendants hung around the parish for a fair old time at that.
The local folk
It is only by happenstance that Chris and Tom’s names are in the church. It was not until WWI memorials came to be that the names of the average John Smiths got their feet through the door, tragically once again due to war.
Which is a shame, though also a fineness that now we are different (probably just differently sinned, but let us pass that one by)…
Which along with that Children of God thing, the all equal in the eyes of God thing, the equality which is is now so much our culture, Christian or not… Well, somehow I think that Chris and Tom and all the names above, even sailor Eddie who saved the little babe, would be well chuffed with us…
Well chuffed indeed.
