Description

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SS558332
684-1/8/209

BARNSTAPLE
PATERNOSTER ROW (North side)
Church of St Peter and St Mary Magdalene including the Doddridge Library

(Formerly Listed as: Church of St Peter including the Doddridge Library, previously Listed as: CHURCH LANE (West side) Church of SS Peter and Paul)

19/01/51

GV
II*

Parish church. Probably late C12 or early C13, enlarged 1318. Spire added 1388-9; Doddridge Library 1667. Restored by Gilbert Scott from 1866 onwards, and by JO Scott in the 1880s. Tower, nave and chancel of random stone rubble; aisles, chancel chapels and Doddridge Library of coursed rubble. Limestone details. Slated roofs. Ribbed leaded spire.

PLAN: nave: North and South aisles; North transept with tower in place of South transept; chancel; North and South chancel chapels; Doddridge Library adjoining North chancel chapel with entrance from Church Walk. Mostly Perpendicular windows restored in C19.

EXTERIOR: Tudor-arched windows in North aisle. C19 South door with pointed arch; above it a blank panel in old Perpendicular surround with cinquefoil arch. Smaller South chancel door of similar date; above it an octagonal sundial with gilt lettering, including date 1732. Twisted broach spire with louvred belfry openings; these have triangular pediments with ball finials, two of the pediments dated 1636. Higher up on the East and West side are small gabled canopies, that to East with two bells.

Doddridge Library has Tudor-arched doorway and three-light stone-mullioned window with cinquefoiled heads to the lights, both probably C19. Upper storey has two windows, each of three lights with restored ovolo-moulded wood mullions. Between them is a moulded plaque inscribed BIBLIOTHECA DODDRIDGIANA 1667. The front is finished with a pair of moulded string courses having ashlar masonry between them and above them a crenellated parapet carved with quatrefoils and the town arms.

INTERIOR: has C14-style nave and chancel arcades designed by Scott (carving by Harry Hems). Tower has two C14 pointed arches with quarter-round mouldings. Waggon roofs throughout, that to chancel boarded and with angels. Chancel and South chancel chapel have medieval niches with trefoiled heads, presumably piscinas originally; the second of these is unusual in having small side-niches with pointed heads.

FITTINGS: C19 Gothic pulpit and font, the former with re-set medieval Barnstaple tiles beneath it. Organ with Gothic case and painted pipes, 1882 by JO Scott. Stained-glass tower window by Clayton & Bell; W window by WF Dixon.

MONUMENTS: numerous C17 wall monuments, mostly to Barnstaple merchants; many have busts or whole figures in high relief. These include in North transept Thomas Horwood (d.1658), founder of the almshouses in Church Lane (qv).

BELLS: six by John Briant, 1803; two Barwell trebles added in 1897. Restored 1980.

Doddridge Library has part of a double-rib ceiling upstairs.

(The Buildings of England: Cherry B: Devon (2nd edition): London: 1989-: 150-1; The Ringing World: 1980-; Some notes on the Parish Church of St Peter, Barnstaple).

Listing NGR: SS5583333223

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of Saints Peter and Paul at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17533060

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)