St John The Baptist

The extent and character of the 1843 work makes it difficult to establish a dating sequence for the medieval period.

Of the C12 church a rounded arched doorway survives

The granite piers of the north arcade could be C14 Decorated but are more likely to be late Perpendicular, the rounded double chamfered arches of the arcade have been described as "restored", but are similar to those at Exminster and Dunchideock.

The east wall of the chancel with a coped gable and diagonal buttresses is entirely 1843 although the 3-light east window with Perpendicular frees tone tracery and a hood-mould preserves the granite sill and jambs of the medieval east window.

The 4 bay north aisle has two 1843 buttresses with set-offs and 3-light Perpendicular style traceried windows at the east and west ends, medieval sills and jambs intact.

The inner doorway is a rounded red sandstone arch, probably 1843, below a C12 Beerstone arch with carved heads at either end and a carved head keystone.

Between the heads the arch is decorated with carved stone whorls.

1843 unceiled waggon roofs with moulded ribs and carved bosses (those in the nave recently painted).

An ogee arched crocketted recess above a chest carved with 4 shields, flanked by tall buttresses, with a cornice above, and above the cornice a frieze of Renaissance arabesques of high quality with similar arabesques and putti in the spandrels above the ogee arch.

On the rear wall, under the recess, a panel of carving in high relief represents the Resurrection and on either side of the panel shallower Renaissance carving of mermen and arabesques.

Pevsner implies that the whole design is mid C16,Crewswell argues that the Renaissance detail was applied to an earlier Gothic design in the C16, when the Easter sepulchre was adapted as a memorial to the Dennis family.

The buttresses flanking the tomb have clearly lost their pinnacles, the resurrection carving is probably not of English origin, and an account of the church in 1843, prior to the restoration, refers to 2 kneeling women on the chest.

2 sections of the wainscot of a late medieval rood screen have been reused as a chancel screen, the wainscot panels have unusually good paintings of saints for the county, apparently by 2 different hands.

The font is a late C15 10-sided bowl with quatrefoils carved in panels on a thick stem with trefoil-headed arcading.

Ancient colour survives on the conical timber font cover.

The pulpit, choir stalls and nave pews are all mid to late C20.

Various C17 tomb slabs are incorporated in the paving of the church.

In the north aisle an unsigned wall monument to Richard Stephens died 1831, is notable.

the quality of the carving is high and the date probably C14.

The east window contains fragments of late medieval glass including a complete kneeling figure with a scroll "IHS fili david miserere mei".

The pictorial glass can be attributed to the Doddiscombsleigh atelier.

The Hayward work of 1843 in a sympathetic Perpendicular style is substantial and the chancel fittings, glass and font are of- especial interest.