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All Saints

Holcombe Rogus

Devon

C15 but in 2 or 3 building phases, restored 1875-80 and vestry added in 1898.

Architectural Features

There are carved gargoyle water spouts on all corners and the corners of the stair turret parapet are carved with large faces.

The south porch, at the left end of the aisle has diagonal buttresses and a Beerstone ashlar front containing a Hamstone 2-centred outer arch with richly-moulded surround and hoodmould with crudely carved human head label stops.

Inside a good Beerstone fan vault with carved bosses, some featuring the Tudor Rose.

The south doorway is a moulded Tudor arch with carved foliate spandrels and hoodmould.

Nevetheless south aisle and chancel have similar Beerstone windows, some with recut carved human head label stops.

The north aisle windows are Hamstone and these have a different style of tracery and Tudor arch heads.

That in the nave was plastered over in the C19 but C15 carpentry is thought to survive here.

The chancel roof is a C19 rebuild with new carved bosses and boarded back.

However both aisles have good C15 wagon roofs.

Although both have moulded ribs and purlins and good carved oak bosses they are different in character.

The north one is now open and it has a richly-carved wall plate with crestwork and there are carved oak angels holding shields under each main truss.

The south aisle arcade, probably the earlier, has moulded caps to the shafts only (more Somerset in character) whereas the north aisle arcade has carved capitals (more Devon in character).

The western-most arch of the south arcade (in from the doorway) includes a couple of carved royal? heads and the pier has an image niche.

Floor of patterned C19 tiles in the nave and aisles also including some good black marble graveslabs of C17 and C18 date.

C19 encaustic tiles are included in the chancel, the most ornamental ones reserved for the sanctuary.

Late C19 carved Beerstone reredos enriched with marble and Gothic in style.

Late C19 altar rail on twisted brass standards, oak stalls in Gothic style with poppyhead finials, oak pulpit and lectern, plain pine benches with children's pews to rear, and Beerstone font richly carved in Perpendicular style.

The Bluett chapel is enclosed by reused sections of a good C15 oak rood or chapel screen

panelled wainscotting Perpendicular tracery (Pevsner's type B) and delicately-carved frieze.

Nothing remains of the rood screen belonging to this church except for a couple of panels incorporated into the Bluett pew.

This Bluett family pew is a most remarkable example of early C17 craftsmanship.

Built of oak it comprises small field panelled wainscotting below richly carved arcade with a crest incorporating 10 medallions carved with scenes from Genesis and Exodus.

Memorials: the church contains a notable group of monuments, the best belonging to members of the Bluett family.

One in memory of Richard and Mary Bluett is marble and depicts Richard reclining on one elbow above the figure of his wife.

The other, larger and more classical commemorates Sir John Bluett in armour and his wife Elizabeth and at the base are the carved figures of their 8 daughters.

Alongside in the north aisle a polychrome marble mural monument in memory of the Reverend Robert Bluett which shows a bas relief of the Good Samaritan with a large urn above.

In the chancel another large marble mural monument featuring 2 allegories sitting each end of a sarcophagus and vase.

Other good Beerstone and marble mural monuments from the C18.

Some late C19 stained glass and some earlier fragments in the tracery of the east window of the south aisle.