Details
UPTON PYNE UPTON PYNE VILLAGE
SX 99 NW
3/56 The Parish Church of Our Lady
30.6.61 (Formerly listed as Church of St Mary)
- I
Parish church. Mainly C14 and C15 with restorations and alterations by Ware (1833)and William White (1874-5). Local volcanic trap, Thorverton stone. West tower, nave of 3 bays, north and south aisles, south porch, chancel, north chancel vestry and organ chamber. Exterior: some C13 chancel wall masonry. Fine west tower of the last quarter of C14 with pronounced diagonal buttresses with concave weathering, south-east half-octagonal stair-turret, 3-light Perpendicular west window and moulded west doorway, large 2-light bell openings with transoms; parapet and pinnacles replaced in 1874-5. The tower is notable for its statuary; King David in the stair turret, crowned, holding a staff with a lamb at his feet; Christ in Benediction over west window; and above diagonal buttresses at the angles of the parapet, the Four Evangelists. All under cusped and finialed niche canopies. The figures are of high quality and stylistically related to the late-C14 work on the west front of Exeter cathedral. South aisle and east windows, mid-C15, 3-light
perpendicular but still with definite ogival forms. 2 roughly contemporary (though coarser) 2-light perpendicular windows in south chancel wall. North aisle rebuilt by Ware with two 3-light perpendicular windows which are archaeologically sound for their date. Internally: chancel arch, C13, low narrow, double-chamfered, the inner order dying into responds. Tall tower arch with shallow moulding. Arcades: south original moulded bases, Pevsner B-type piers, heavy foliated capitals, the east and west piers elaborated with panels of shields and fleurons. North arcade piers rebuilt by Ware, arches by White, the medieval capitals retained. South windows retain reveals, those in chance crude, semi-circular with hollow chamfer.
Late-medieval ringing chamber roof, with C18 balusters to tower-arch gallery.
White's restoration through and sensitive: his organ chamber connected to both
north aisle and chancel by moulded arches, the 1833 east aisle window moved east, a medieval sanctuary north window retained (3-light Perpendicular). The setting-up of a diagonal spatial movement (so beloved by White) is reinforced by his squeezing of a low, narrowly-pointed arch between the east most pier of south arcade and chancel arch wall, into which space is fitted the pulpit. Also White's are the roofs, varied and effective. Interior render. Incised pattern suggests that White envisaged a total decorative scheme of which only tiles and furnishings were executed. Sanctuary refitted by R M Fulford (1887); a good reredos framing on C18 Italian painting of the Last Supper. Monuments: 2 early-C16 tomb recesses in south-east wall of south aisle which together with a piscina probably represent the Pyne/Larder chantry chapel. 1 with recumbent armed figure of Edmund Larder (d.1521), his feet on a dog, head on helm, his heraldic arms displayed on an epaulette, all under 4-headed segmented arch, and framed by clumsy pinnacles, tomb chest decorated with shields in quadrants. The other recess similar but coarser in execution. South aisle, south-east, Lucie Stafford (d. 1693), mural monument, black tablet, Corinthian columns to each side, white broken pediment containing heraldic arms. Glass: German fragments dated 1630 in south aisle, south east window. East by Ward & Hughes, north aisle (organ chamber) east, Hardman to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin design; north aisle, west by Drake.
Main sources: Pevsner, p 303; Devon C19 Churches Project; Sir John Stratford
Northcote, Notes on the Parish Church of Upton Pyne (London, n.d., circa 1890).
Listing NGR: SX9102297714
