Description

SS 90 NW BICKLEIGH 5/4 Bickleigh Castle chapel - including walls to enclosure to south and west GV II* Private chapel. Nave and chancel fabric probably C12; chancel roof C15, restoration of 1929, further restoration, including re-roofing the nave, in 1970. Local volcanic rubble with volcanic dressings; thatched roof, gabled at east and west ends. Plan: nave and chancel with an entrance on the south side of the nave. The chancel retains Romanesque windows, the nave has circa late C15 Perpendicular style windows, which may be co-eval with the chancel roof. For a period prior to 1929 the building was in use as a cattle shed and the west end gallery may derive from a fodder loft added for agricultural purposes. The chapel was restored in 1970 including replacing the nave roof with a copy of the plain collar rafter roof trusses which may themselves have replaced a more elaborate late medieval roof. There is evidence of patching on the north side masonry and the ashlar north and south west corners indicate rebuilding. A plinth on the south side of the nave returns round the west end, suggesting that there may have been some reconstruction of the south wall although the date at which this took place is uncertain. The chancel has a very narrow round-headed C12 slit east window, deeply splayed to the interior, and a shorter, wider round-headed 1-light C12 window on the south side. The north side of the nave has a 3-light Perpendicular window inserted in C20 with cinquefoil-headed lights and a square-headed hoodmould; 2 similar 2-light west window. The narrow C12 south doorway has an outer and inner round-headed arch with a continuous hoodmould. Interior Whitewashed walls with exposed stone dressings; chancel arch formed by junction of nave and chancel roof; stone floor; west end gallery with ladder access largely 1971 but retaining 1 roughly chamfered cross beam. C15 unceiled waggon roof to chancel with moulded ribs and carved bosses. Utilitarian collar rafter nave roof, a 1971 copy of the previous roof structure with pegged trusses. Font with splayed octagonal bowl with a brattished moulding on a plain octagonal stem, stem and bowl not necessarily co-eval. The chancel has an ogee-arched aumbry with blind tracery. The narrow east window is filled with a stained glass vine trail; the south window in the chancel with a Virgin and Child in the C14 manner. Furnishings, introduced from elsewhere, include a probably C16 carved chest with panels of blind flamboyant tracery used as an altar; re-used bench ends, 1 with poppyhead finials and carved arm rests; a C17 lectern with traces of ancient colour on the barleysugar stem andCl7 folding chairs. Loose fragments of high quality alabaster were found when the chapel floor was excavated this century. Cob and stone rubble walls form an enclosure to the south and west of the chapel and are important to its setting. A rare example of a circa C12 private chapel forming a group with Bickleigh Castle.

Listing NGR: SS9369406801

External Links

• Wikidata Q17531260

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