St Mary (buckfast Abbey)

Round-headed west doorway with shafts, left and right shafts with cushion capitals and carved gable.

Small gabled porch in second bay from the west with set-back buttresses, parapet and round-headed outer doorway with shafts and chevron-carved arch.

Aisle walls decorated with blind round-headed recesses containing triple round-headed arches on shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals.

Tower arches on short paired shafts with moulded bases and carved capitals.

Choir has similar detail to nave but carved, not moulded capitals and stone infill to the vaulting of choir and choir aisles.

East end of sanctuary has 2 round-headed arches and 2 round-headed windows above the triforium with a central shaft rising to a carving of the Coronation of the Virgin.

The furnishings, floors, painted decoration and stained glass are unexpectedly lavish, particularly the outstanding metalwork, which is mostly 1928-1932 by Bernhard Witte of Aachen, inspired by German Romanesque metalwork and described in some detail in Pevsner.

The stained glass is a remarkable collection, mostly still in the medievalising Victorian tradition and of the highest quality.

In addition the church contains a C16 ivory crucifix donated by the Clifford family of Ugbrooke, the leading Roman Catholic family in Devon.

1965 Blessed Sacrament chapel by Paul Pearn conceived as a setting for ambitious mosaic stained glass designed by Father Charles Norris, one of the Buckfast Abbey monks.

Buckfast Abbey became an important focus for Roman Catholicism in Devon in the late C19 and C20 with the monks serving private chapels in the area, including Ugbrooke in Chudleigh for the Clifford family and Dundridge in Harberton for the wife of Sir John Harvey.