Description

KENTON CHURCH STREET (south side),
SX 9681-9781 Starcross
Church of Saint Paul
14/219
5.9.86

GV II

Parish Church. Datestone of 1828. Grey limestone rubble with Bathstone dressings,
slate roofs.
Plan: 4-bay nave with a west gallery and west end bellcote. Entrances at the west
end and on the north side. Original design by Charles Hedgeland, remodelled 1852-54
by David Mackintosh. Initial Greek style design by Charles Hedgeland, 1826 ;
substantial remodelling of 1852-54 by David Mackintosh in an unarchaeological
Romanesque Revival included a new chancel, south vestry, bell turret, north porch,
exposing the timber roof and replacing the sash windows with stone windows
Exterior: Gabled chancel with clasping buttresses and 3 round-headed windows with
shafts and Romanesque capitals, similar windows to chancel north and south. Small
south-east vestry with a pedimented east gable, a round-headed east window and south
doorway with a round-headed arch. Nave buttressed on the east wall with angle
buttresses at the west one and are buttressed on the north side. 4 round-headed
moulded stone windows to the south side, the north side with 3 windows and a shallow
gabled north-west porch with a 2-leaf plank and stud door. Buttressed west end
slightly broken forward in the centre where a projection with a dentil cornice, set-
offs and clasping buttresses rises as a gabled bellcote. Round headed west doorway
with shafts, Romanesque capitals and a 2-leaf plank, cover strip and stud door, 1
round-headed window above. Above the dentil cornice a datestone, largely illegible,
commemorates the Reverend William Powley, date said to be 1828. The bell hangs in a
round-headed arch with shafts and Romanesque captials with a smaller round-headed
arch above.
Interior: Plastered walls ; round-headed chancel arch with engaged shafts with
Romanesque capitals ; west end gallery with simple panelled frontal on partly fluted
columns, the gallery screened in below the frontal. 8-bay nave roof with tie beam
and queen post trusses on stone corbels with pendants and braces. Collar rafter roof
to the chancel with diagonal braces below the collar. 1928 alabaster reredos with a
carved panel and symbols of the crucifixion, co-eval marble paving to the sanctuary
floor ; timber communion rail of 1905, with round-headed arches. The nave has a late
C19 timber drum pulpit with traceried panels, a good 1932 eagle lectern and an odd
font with tiny octangonal bowl on a slender stem. Choir stalls and nave benches
probably date from Mackintosh's work of the 1850s. 1850s stained glass probably by
Beer of Exeter, including the east window and east windows to the nave. Memorials
include a marble wall tablet to Richard Eales, died 1852, signed R. Brown, 58 Gt.
Russell Street, London, and a coloured marble wall tablet signed Easton, Exeter, to
Charles Eales, died 1874. Royal Arms of 1828.
In 1829 Starcross was made into an ecclesiastical parish out of parts of the
districts of Dawlish and Kenton.
Historically interesting for the eclectic 1850s Romanesque work, presumably
necessitated by the form of the original Greek design and a sharp contrast with the
archaeologically correct Gothic being erected in the Diocese at the same time.

Devon Nineteenth Century Churches Project.

Listing NGR: SX9757681613

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26593347

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.

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