Details
SX 9071
16/94
HACCOMBE-WITH-COMBE
COMBEINTEIGNHEAD
Church of All Saints
GII*
Parish church.C12 font, medieval fabric partly C13,extended by aisles,probably in the C15,tower described as having had a Decorated west window but looks C15;restorations of 1851(date on porch)and 1887(architect R.M. Fulford).Coursed red sandstone with Beerstone and Ham Hill dressings;slate roof.PLAN:Nave,chancel,north and south transepts,three bay north and south aisles,west tower,north west porch, south east organ chamber.An illustration and descriptions of the church prior to 1851 indicate that the origins of the chancel and transepts are Early English(Thorne).The three bay aisles are probably C15,the date at which the tower may have been rebuilt or remodelled.Few Early English details survive,most of the windows are 1851 Perpendicular and the chancel was largely rebuilt and extended at the same date;the nave,south transept and aisle roofs were replaced and the north porch was rebuilt.A more sensitive restoration by Robert Medley Fulford in 1887 involved repairing the screen,a new timber chancel arch,stepping up the chancel,providing the north east organ chamber and re-seating the nave.EXTERIOR:Chancel largely 1851 with deep diagonal buttresses and a carved stone eaves cornice;three-light C19 Perpendicular east window with carved label stops,priest's door with moulded frame on south side,embattled 1887 organ chamber on north side with a three-light cusped north window.Diagonal buttresses to north and south transepts with C19 Decorated north and south three-light windows with carved label stops.Blocked opening on east wall of north transept,blocked lancet to east wall of south transept,visible from the interior.Three bay buttressed north and south aisles with C19 Perpendicular three-light windows.Battlemented west tower with diagonal buttresses,tall corner pinnacles and an embattled polygonal north east stair turret.Shallow-moulded west doorway below a three-light C19 Perpendicular west window.Two-light traceried belfry openings on all four faces,cusped one-light opening at bellringers' stage on the north side.North porch in westernmost bay of north aisle with an 1851 date on the label stop of the moulded outer doorway;diagonal buttresses,quartrefoil windows to the returns;C19 arched brace roof and good C19 inner door in a moulded door frame.INTERIOR:Plastered walls;1887 timber chancel arch;plain rounded tower arch;three-bay north and south arcades with octagonal piers and capitals and rounded double-chamfered arches;unusual junction between transept and aisle roofs,the aisle roof wall-plate over-sailing the transepts and supported on upward curving braces on corbels(q.v. Stokeinteignhead).It is not clear whether this is a copy of the medieval arrangement.Ceiled wagon roofs,mostly of 1851,with roll-moulded ribs and small uniform carved bosses,the chancel roof with cross ribs and a wall plate carved with cherubs' heads.Five-bay rood screen with renewed coving and narrow,sharply-pointed openings.C19 chancel fittings,the 1851 reredos with blind tracery and stone cresting flanked by gabled commandment boards. North and south stone seats to the sanctuary below heavily crocketted nodding ogee arches;low stone communion screen pierced with trefoils.1887 choir stalls with carved ends of an unusual profile.On the north side of the choir an 1887 stone canopied recess is associated with a two-light hagioscope into the transept.An arched opening into the chancel from the south transept,blocked in 1851,was re-opened as a hagioscope in 1887.The nave has a C12 font,probably re-cut,with palmette motifs on the bowl,saltire crosses decorating the rim and a heavy cable moulding above the stem;C19 timber drum pulpit with open traceried panels;set of late C19 bench ends.Dado tiling to the aisle walls,of a rather startling glazed pink,added in 1907.The north transept which became the Gregory Fokeray chantry in the C15,has a rounded,chamfered piscina in the east wall and four C15 benches with two frontals,the bench ends crowned with crouching animals and carved with figures and tracery.The south transept has a tomb recess in the south wall with a C17 slate ledger stone fixed beneath the arch.Monuments:Notable monument to the Hockmore family in the north transept,the detail large-scale and rustic and said to be modelled in local clay(Thorne).A rustic ogee arch above a chest tomb,the arch decorated with pomegranates and crowned by an archievement,the chest with armorial bearings in wreaths divided by bead and reel moulding and half-palmettes,with a brass inscription panel in a Purbeck matrix under the arch.The lid of the chest commemorates Gregory Hockmore,died 1571,the ogival arch is said to be 1613,commemorating Alice Hockmore(Thorne).Two large slate ledger stones with coloured armorial bearings in relief are fixed to the transept walls and commemorate William Hockmore,died 1626 and Gregory Hockmore,died 1655.A number of late C18 and C19 black and white marble wall tablets including a good late C19 tablet,gabled and crocketted,in the south transept signed T.H. Knight,Teignmouth.Stained Glass:Remnants of an 1850s or 1860s glazing scheme in the head tracery of the aisle and transept windows.1880s west window,probably by Drake of Exeter,east window 1905 by Drake of Exeter.Devon Nineteenth Century Churches Project.
Listing NGR: SX9018471535
