CHURCH OF ST MARY (BUCKFAST ABBEY)

CHURCH OF ST MARY, BUCKFAST ABBEY, BUCKFAST ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1209774
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1951
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST MARY (BUCKFAST ABBEY)
Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST MARY, BUCKFAST ABBEY, BUCKFAST ROAD

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Date:: 2001-09-13
Reference:: IOE01/05039/23
Rights:: © Mr Ernie W. King. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1209774
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1951
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST MARY (BUCKFAST ABBEY)
Statutory Address 1:: CHURCH OF ST MARY, BUCKFAST ABBEY, BUCKFAST ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST MARY, BUCKFAST ABBEY, BUCKFAST ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: Teignbridge (District Authority)
Parish:: Buckfastleigh
National Park:: DARTMOOR
National Grid Reference:: SX 74147 67411

Details

BUCKFASTLEIGH

SX7467 BUCKFAST ROAD, Buckfast 1011-1/5/29 Abbey Church Of St Mary 10/01/51 (Formerly Listed as: BUCKFAST ROAD, Buckfast St Mary's Church, Buckfast Abbey)

GV II*

Abbey church. Built 1907-1932, on the foundations of the medieval Cistercian abbey church (except the east end). FA Walters. For the Benedictine monks who established a house here in 1882. Most of the building work was carried out by a small group of monks working under a master mason. Snecked local grey limestone with Ham Hill dressings; copper roof. Style "mixture of English Cistercian and French early Gothic" (Pevsner). 1965 east end Blessed Sacrament chapel to the designs of Paul Pearn. Plan: church with 8-bay lean-to aisles plus galleried western bay; central crossing tower; transepts with chapels; 3-bay choir with choir aisles; east end Blessed Sacrament chapel with undercroft. EXTERIOR: west end of nave with flanking projecting buttresses containing stairs to gallery, rising as pinnacles with broach spire roofs, bases and pinnacles decorated with blind arcading. Round-headed west doorway with shafts, left and right shafts with cushion capitals and carved gable. Doorway has 3 orders of zigzag, billet and chevron moulding on engaged shafts; 2-leaf door with elaborate ironwork. Above the doorway a recessed 3-centred blind moulded arch containing 2 round-headed windows with shafts and a roundel window above. Above the archway blind arcading decorates the gable. West ends of lean-to aisles have smaller versions of the buttresses flanking the nave and paired round-headed openings (one blind) with roundels above. North side of 9-bay nave has pilasters and a corbelled parapet. Round-headed triforium windows linked by string rising as continuous hoodmould. Nave with parapet and round-headed windows, the hoodmould string interrupted by the pilasters. Small gabled porch in second bay from the west with set-back buttresses, parapet and round-headed outer doorway with shafts and chevron-carved arch. Easternmost 2 bays of aisle with taller roof and blind arcading above the windows. North end of north transept with tall paired arches containing 4 tiers of glazed blind and glazed windows, either round-headed or roundels. East side of transept has one-bay chapel. The choir continues in the same style with lean-to choir aisle roofs. 1965 concrete east end chapel on 4 columns with shallow gabled roof. Tower with 3 stages above nave roof. Clasping pilasters; corner pinnacles with 2 tiers of blind arcading and broach spires, crow-stepped parapet. Lower stage has lancet windows in round-headed recesses, middle stage has small lancet windows in moulded arched recesses; 2-light plate-traceried louvred belfry windows. INTERIOR: Stone-vaulted, the aisles with transverse vaults. Arcades with piers with engaged shafts and chamfred and moulded arches. Nave rib vault with red sandstone infill. Triforium has a pair of 2-light pointed arches to each bay with super-ordinate round-headed blind arch. Aisle walls decorated with blind round-headed recesses containing triple round-headed arches on shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals. Stone-vaulted west end gallery on piers with canted bays to parapet. Tower arches on short paired shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals. Crossing has corbelled stone gallery; transepts have simple galleries on moulded corbels with cast-iron railings. Choir has similar detail to nave but carved, not moulded capitals and stone infill to the vaulting of choir and choir aisles. East end of sanctuary has 2 round-headed arches and 2 round-headed windows above the triforium with a central shaft rising to a carving of the Coronation of the Virgin. The furnishings, floors, painted decoration and stained glass are unexpectedly lavish, particularly the outstanding metalwork, which is mostly 1928-1932 by Bernhard Witte of Aachen, inspired by German Romanesque metalwork and described in some detail in Pevsner. The stained glass is a remarkable collection, mostly still in the medievalising Victorian tradition and of the highest quality. In addition the church contains a C16 ivory crucifix donated by the Clifford family of Ugbrooke, the leading Roman Catholic family in Devon. 1965 Blessed Sacrament chapel by Paul Pearn conceived as a setting for ambitious mosaic stained glass designed by Father Charles Norris, one of the Buckfast Abbey monks. Historical note: the rebuilding of the abbey church by the Buckfast monks was well-publicised in the national and local press and one of the monks with an interest in photography recorded much of the work: the archive is held by the abbey. Buckfast Abbey became an important focus for Roman Catholicism in Devon in the late C19 and C20 with the monks serving private chapels in the area, including Ugbrooke in Chudleigh for the Clifford family and Dundridge in Harberton for the wife of Sir John Harvey. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 222-226).

Listing NGR: SX7414767411

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 392224
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 222-226

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.