CHURCH OF ST NECTAN

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1333125
Date first listed:: 20-Feb-1958
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST NECTAN
Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST NECTAN

User submitted image — Uploaded by ChurchCare This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2001-06-18
Reference:: IOE01/04609/03
Rights:: © Mr Douglas G Wood. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1333125
Date first listed:: 20-Feb-1958
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST NECTAN
Statutory Address 1:: CHURCH OF ST NECTAN

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 NECTAN

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

County:: Devon
District:: Torridge (District Authority)
Parish:: Hartland
National Grid Reference:: SS 23503 24743

Details

HARTLAND STOKE SS 22 SW

3/192 Church of St Nectan

20.2.58

GV I

Parish Church. A Collegiate church was founded here by Gytha in circa 1050 and dedicated to St Nectan, the main fabric dates from the C14 and C15. Restored circa 1850 and 1910-11. Coursed rubble walls with stone coping to gables. Gable ended slate roofs. Plan: Nave, chancel, north and south aisles, transept chapels and porches, west tower. the main style of the church is Perpendicular but the traceryof the windows has largely been replaced and the nave, chancel and tower at least are likely to be C14. The date of aisles and north and southporches is more problemmatic and they are not necessarily contemporaneous but likely to have been built between the 2nd half of the C14 and the later C15. A restoration of c.1850 replaced the tracery of the windows when the parclose screens were also put in. In 1910-11 Mr Herbert Read made a careful restoration of all the decayed and missing portions of the roof in St Mary's Chapel (north, faithfully copying designs and colours of the original work and retaining all that was sound. Exterior: Imposing 4 stage tower 128' high - reputedly the tallest in Devon with set back buttresses with gargoyles at the top, embattled parapet and large corner pinnacles. 2-light transomed belfry openings of Decorated style. On the east face of the tower in a canopied niche is the figure of St Nectan probably medieval but with the head replaced by that of a bishop. Original moulded west doorway with almost semi-circular head terminating in carved angels, each holding a shield and clothed in tne habit of a monk with hood. Restored window above with probably C20 tracery in Decorated style of Doulting stone. Both north and south aisles are embattled and windows restored in c.1850 with Perpendicular tracery, apart from east window of south aisle, which is Decorated style. Chancel has C18 lead rainwater head on south wall. Large Perpendicular gabled 2 storey north porch has simple outer doorway with pointed arch and double hollow moulded 4-centred inner arch. In east wall on 1st floor original 2-light window survives with square head and jambs grooved for shutters, the central moulded mullion has been re-used. South porch carries datestone of 1786 commemorating the rebuilding of its front wall with a simple flattened arch and a sundial above date 1804. The large south doorway is C14 with a 2-centres head and double row of mouldings in between which are small carved fleurons. Both porches retain their medieval wagon roofs and have stone benches. Their doors are in fact early constructed of oak but encased with deal. Interior: Walls are plastered, much of it ancient with signs of old colour but the surface emulsion painted. 6 bay north and south aisles of 4-centred chamfered arches, slender piers of 4 clustered shafts with low moulded cup capitals. N chancel arch. Tall tower arch of 3 orders with 4-centred head and projecting imposts. Plain plastered 4-centred arches to transept chapels. C14 trefoiled piscina in chancel. Medieval wagon roofs throughout restored in varying degrees. That to nave has ornamental bosses, moulded ribs, carved wall-plate and painted decoration; the east half is ceiled with decorated panels renewed in C20. North and south aisle roofs have moulded ribs, carved wall-plates and bosses - the western portion of the north aisle roof was destroyed by fire and reconstructed with new bosses symbolizing the Christian's progress through life. The roof of the north (Lady) chapel is particularly ornate with most of the bosses original and the decoration in each panel is of a different design. Very fine C15 rood screen extending the whole width of the Church, eleven bays long with Pevsner A-type tracery and rich foliage carving to coling, with evidence of ancient colouring throughout. Parclose screens are C19. High quality benches with carved ends in south chapel which according to documentary evidence were originally installed in the Lady Chapel circa 1540 by Hugh Prust of Thorny. Other pews largely C17 with some C19 restoration and all those in south transpet being C19. Restored medieval pulpit on renewed stone base. In the chamber over the north porch are the preserved panels of a Jacobean pulpit, a list of the allotments of seats in 1613 and pieces of medieval tiles and glass as well as the parish stocks. Very fine late Norman font with square-base and bowl ornamented with intersecting arcading and a stem with cable mouldings separated by incised zig zags. Carved heads at the corners. All the glass is C19 or early C20, the east one designed by Christopher Webb, apart from one in the Lady Chapel which has 3 roundels of which the central one is C14 depicting the Virgin Mary. Bells cast in 1826, inside the base of the tower are 2 early C19 benefaction boards. Sited in the chancel is an ornate late C14 elaborately carved altar tomb of Catacleuse stone removed from Hartland Abbley in 1848. It served as an altar and communion table until 1931. Throughout the church are 60 mural monuments on walls and floors of which a few are of considerable interest. In the chancel floor is an incised metalwork cross and border with finely incised inscription, now illegible, heraldic shield at centre. On the north aisle wall are 2 particularly good wall memorials. One has a segmental pediment over the slate plaque surmounted by heraldic shield with cherub at either side and with 2 Corintian columns below, in memory of John Velly, d.1694. The other has a damaged pediment with relief of grieving mother and child, slate plaque with richly decorated surround and foliated volutes either side, dated 1723. Both memorials have ancient colouring. In the south aisle is a smaller wooden memorial with Ionic columns to either side of a plaque surmounted by a heraldic shield and retaining its original colours. This is one of the finest churches in North Devon, its interior little altered by restoration and retaining much of its early fabric and features. Sources: The Book of Hartland, R Pearse Chope, Church Guide, F K Lewis and H Prust.

Listing NGR: SS2350524742

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 91258
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Lewis, , Prust, , Church Guide for Church of St Nectan in the Parish of Hartland
Pearse Chope, R, The Book of Hartland

Legal

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