Church of St John

Details

865/5/101 TIPTON ST JOHN 28-APR-52 CHURCH OF ST JOHN

II 1839-40 by John Hayward. Nave reseated later in the 19th century.

MATERIALS: roughly dressed local limestone with limestone dressings. Slate roofs.

PLAN: Nave, short chancel, NE porch, SE vestry. EXTERIOR: The church sits on sharply rising ground. It is built in the early English style of the 13th century. Its most distinctive feature is the use of large lancet windows. There are three of these at the E end and these are graded. The side elevations of the nave have paired lights in the three W bays, the E bay on each side being taken up with a porch (N) and vestry (S). The windows have moulded heads and slender engaged shafts in the jambs with small moulded capitals. At the W end there is a doorway with a richly moulded head and engaged triple shafts with capitals. Above a stringcourse there is a large circular, spoked window with eight divisions. Straddling the W gable is a one-light bellcote with a moulded and shafted opening. The nave and chancel have plain parapets to their side elevations: that on the nave has four small incised trefoils on each side. The NE porch is unusually placed: it has a doorway with continuous mouldings.

INTERIOR: The walls are plastered and whitened. The nave and chancel are linked by a fairly narrow chancel arch which has mouldings and shafts that reflect the work in the windows. The windows have shafts in their jambs and between the lights. Over the ceiling is three-sided: the trusses have tie-beams with curved braces to the principal rafters. The chancel roof, being much narrower lacks tie-beams or braces.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The main feature surviving from the original building is the W gallery, supported on a pair of cast-iron columns and entered via a wooden stair in the NW angle of the nave. The gallery frontal is plain panelled work. The gallery still retains original seating. The central section still has doors and, on the book rest at the front is the lettering `CHOIR¿: the side parts are lettered `SCHOOL', thus indicating by whom at least part of the gallery was used. Over the doorway to the porch is a stone royal arms dated 1839. The stone pulpit, probably dating from 1839-40, has two tiers of blind Perpendicular tracery. There is good mid-19th-century stained glass in some of the windows. On the N side are also two windows by Ward and Hughes, 1889, one of them depicting the Light of the World. The reredos, probably of the early 20th-century has a figure of Christ in Majesty in the centre, flanked by three saints under canopies on either side. The seating is a (probably) late 19th-century replacement for that installed in 1840.

HISTORY: St John's is the first church designed by the important Exeter architect John Hayward (1808-91) and was built under the patronage of the Coleridge family of Ottery St Mary. His practice was based in High Street, Exeter. He also designed the Royal Albert Museum in Exeter, built in 1865-6. He became closely linked with the influential Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, founded in 1841, and which did much to encourage high-quality Gothic architecture that was faithful to medieval work as promoted by Pugin and the Cambridge Camden Society (CCS). His slightly later church of St Andrew, Exwick, Exeter (1841-2) was given an enormously enthusiastic reception by the CCS which was the chief arbiter of Anglican taste in such matters. St John's church, even though it is Hayward¿s first work, is a great improvement on most late Georgian Gothic with well-detailed windows, W doorway and wheel window over it.

SOURCES: Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Devon, 1989, p 807.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St John, Tipton St John, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is of special interest as a very early Victorian village church designed in the Early English style and displaying a much better understanding of medieval architecture than was usual for the time. It was the first church by the Exeter architect John Hayward who went on to a distinguished career in Devon and was highly regarded as a pioneer of good church-building. * It retains some fixtures from the original building in terms of the W gallery and royal arms.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

398279

Legacy System:

LBS

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