Church of the Assumption of Our Lady

Details

TORQUAY

SX9164 ABBEY ROAD 885-1/14/9 (South West side) Church of the Assumption of Our Lady

GV II

Roman Catholic church. 1853, by J Hansom, aisle and Lady Chapel added 1858. Local grey limestone rubble with freestone dressings; slate roofs. Decorated style. PLAN: Part of a complex including a schoolroom and presbytery, Abbey Road (qqv). Nave; chancel; north and south transepts; north and south aisles; north-west porch. EXTERIOR: Chancel lower than nave; gabled bellcote at junction. North side has 3 windows to the chancel. Buttressed transept with 3-light window with trefoil-headed lights, then 2 aisle bays, gabled to the north with buttresses with battered set-offs and gables. Bay to west with a lean-to roof. Gabled porch in westernmost bay with a chamfered arched doorway, coped gable and statue niche. West end has a central buttress flanked by one-light traceried windows with a traceried sherical triangle above. 4 gables to the south elevation. INTERIOR: Roofs partly boxed-in with plasterboard, chancel fittings and font late C20, otherwise much of Hansom's interior survives, although the carved work, which is high quality, has been sprayed silver and most of the painted decoration covered in white paint. 4-bay nave with W end gallery containing organ. NE Lady chapel. SE end used as baptistry. 3-bay N & S arcades differ from one another - W bay has low triple arcade into W ends of aisles. N arcade has polished Italian columns and moulded capitals; double-chamfered arches. Lean-to roof with timber trusses, stone arch into transept. S aisle has different polished marble shafts, the 2 easternmost columns clustered. S aisle roof divided into separate bays with transverse members with hammerbeam detail. Moulded chancel arch on short marble shafts with Early English capitals, springing from carved heads. Arcades from chancel into Lady Chapel and Baptistry, Baptistry abuts chancel oddly with 2 arcades parallel to one another and a sort of mini-aisle in timber posts. Lady chapel has C19 stone carved (painted) brattished reredos divided into bays by slender marble shafts. Stone altar table on 3 shafts with Early English capitals. Baptistry has boarded keeled wagon roof preserving C19 painted decoration. C20 pulpit incorporates carved figure panel that may have come from C19 reredos. Beaten copper Stations of the Cross on the S aisle wall. Most of the nave benches C19. Remarkable wall monument in round-headed niche on S aisle wall. Naturalistic white marble head of the Virgin above inscription to Edward Melchior Jean Marie, Prince de Polignac, composer of music, 1834-1901. STAINED GLASS: E window by Hardman, 1860s, with the fading peculiar to the firm's windows of this date. Fine set of late C19 Hardman windows in the S aisle including one to Henry Cary with a portrait figure of Cary on a bier at the base. Hardman windows showing Marian symbols in side wall of the Lady chapel and in the E window. (The Buildings of England: Cherry B: Devon: London: 1989-: P.851).

Listing NGR: SX9137664048

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

390461

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 851

End of official list entry

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