Description

PLYMOUTH

SX4654NE HIGH STREET, Stonehouse 740-1/56/820 (North side) 01/05/75 Former Royal Naval Hospital: The Church of the Good Shepherd (Formerly Listed as: HIGH STREET, Stonehouse Royal Naval Hospital: Chapel)

GV II

Chapel at former Naval Hospital. 1883, restored after war damage in 1945-6. MATERIALS: Plymouth limestone random rubble (like crazy paving) and limestone dressings; dry slate roofs with coped ends: nave roof above wooden clerestory with trefoils and cusped 2-light dormer windows with round tracery over mullion shafts (4 to each side); half-conical roof over chancel; lean-tos over aisles, all with ornate cornices, and stone spire to tower. STYLE: Gothic Revival, mostly with early English details. PLAN: nave: semicircular-plan chancel; N and S aisles with integral E porches; short transept to W end of N aisle; small apse to W end of S aisle, and small-plan tower with baptistry to SW corner. EXTERIOR: early Gothic style features including stiff-leaf capitals, nail-head ornament and shaft rings; cusped and traceried 2-light windows with nook shafts with carved stiff-leaf capitals: 6 chancel windows with linked hoodmoulds over pointed arches. Nave has punched trefoil band running between gabled 2-light dormers; 4 squat 2-centred arched windows to each aisle; quatrefoils above similar windows with hoodmoulds and moulded impost strings to ends of aisles. At W end of nave is large 2-centred arched window of 2 orders over W porch with 2-centred outer arch of 2 orders and trefoil-headed inner doorway. S porch is gabled; N porch has squat moulded arch and lean-to hood above which is a series of 5 quatrefoils over 3 trefoils. Tower is of 3 diminishing stages with octagonal upper stage surmounted by steep spire with finial; carved cornices above each stage. 2nd stage has chamfered corners and paired lights; lower stage has corner shafts and single lights with trefoil heads. INTERIOR: light white-painted interior with natural wood arch-braced (hammer-beam) and aisled roof carried on slender wooden posts; moulded pointed chancel arch over clustered polished marble shafts; fan roof over chancel with turned shafts with richly-carved capitals to windows.

FITTINGS: include marble font with quatrefoils and turned shafts; 2nd font which seems to be made of a wooden ship's bollard and part of a gun; pitch-pine pews with V-jointed boards and shaped ends; ships' badges. War memorial. A very unusual church design, described by Pevsner as "engineers' Gothic", and set in good grounds as part of an outstanding military hospital complex. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 655; Morrison K: Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse: Cambridge: 1992-: 100373).



Listing NGR: SX4674754741

External Links

• Wikidata Q26407175

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Recommended Books

• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)