Description

TORQUAY

SX9164 ELLACOMBE CHURCH ROAD
885-1/14/90 (North side)
Parish Church of Christ Church

II

Parish church. 1868 to the designs of Habershon, Brock and
Webb. Chancel and south-east chapel by Tait and Harvey, 1907,
aisle 1889 by Richards and Harrison. Snecked local grey
limestone rubble; freestone dressings; slate roof.
PLAN: Chancel; nave; 4-bay south aisle; south-west tower
incorporating porch; north-east vestry; south-east chapel.
EXTERIOR: Chancel lower than nave. South side (show front)
consists of the buttressed south aisle with a lean-to roof and
2-light Geometric Decorated-style traceried windows.
3-stage tower to west, square on plan to the bottom stage with
a south-east stair turret which has a moulded south doorway
with stiff-leaf capitals to the responds; gabled hoodmould and
original boarded door with good ironwork. Lancet windows
above. Belfry stage with canted corners has louvred lancet
windows with a stone batter below tall lucarnes; stone spire.
The south-east chapel is snecked ashlar with diagonal
buttresses, a parapet, hipped roof and trefoil-headed
one-light windows: one to the south side and two to the east.
Chancel with same masonry finish as the chapel, has moulded
string courses, angle buttresses and a central buttress in the
east wall; 5-light Geometric Decorated traceried east window.
North side of nave has Geometric Decorated traceried windows.
INTERIOR: Moulded chancel arch with text in Lombardic script;
chancel roof a boarded, keeled wagon with moulded ribs and
carved bosses. Unusually tall nave, the roof idiosyncratic:
5-and-a-half bays with intermediate trusses. Main trusses
arch-braced with queen posts above the tie supporting a
scissor-braced apex with braces from the queen posts both to
the purlins and principal rafters. Intermediate trusses are
also arch-braced with king posts. All trusses spring from
stone corbels.
The 4-bay south arcade has remarkable slender cast-iron
columns of quatrefoil section and wrought-iron capitals below
an iron plate that supports the thick chamfered arches.
West end gallery glazed in with elaborate Gothic front.
The chancel has 2-bay arcades into the side chapels with
cylindrical columns and moulded arches. Sedilia with traceried
segmental arch and pendant.
FITTINGS: Chancel fittings of early C20; timber blind
traceried reredos; Purbeck marble ashlar chancel screen.
Octagonal pulpit with pierced roundels is contemporary with
chancel screen. Font with small bowl on slender stem. 1918 war
memorial window possibly by Hugh Easton.
(Brooks C, Cherry M and Cox J: Devon Nineteenth Century
Churches Project Archive).

Listing NGR: SX9196164643

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 27 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26501967

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

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)