St Mary The Virgin

C15, with earlier west tower

The fenestration is mostly C15 Perpendicular, except the windows to transeptal chapels of c1710 which have tall 4-light flat-arched windows.

The C15 Perpendicular five-light east window has cusped ogee heads to the main lights, the shallow-pointed 4-light east windows to the parcloses have C15 panel tracery.

Above the porch is a C16 flat-arched window with ogee heads to 4 lights below paired quatrefoils.

To the east end is a label mould over a restored Tudor-arched door, above is a C16 tall flat-arched 4-light window with sunk spandrels and head stops to the label mould.

INTERIOR: 6 pointed arches springing from slender Pevsner B columns with polygonal concave main shafts, have intricate carved capitals characteristic of C15 Devon depicting vine, oak and other foliage with various creatures such as a boar eating acorns, birds pecking berries, an owl, slugs and snails.

C19 polychromatic tiles to the chancel floor.

FITTINGS: c1518 ornate and elaborately-painted wooden screen (formerly with a rood screen above) spans the east end, and extends forward to enclose the parcloses, with painted figures to wainscotting and Perpendicular panel tracery above: coving missing, some "especially fine" (Pevsner) carving to the cornice.

Norman font of red gritstone with cable and chevron moulding, a rare and notable example of a medieval Gothic brass eagle lectern said to have been hidden in Lang's Copse near Bradley Manor, Old Totnes Road (qv) during the Commonwealth, reredos of 1902 depicting the Annunciation, a late C14 bell probably by John Bird of London and a 1914-1918 war memorial pulpit carved by Herbert Read.

SX8570 : St Mary, Wolborough, Devon - Font

© John Salmon

Beneath the pulpit is a large fragment of a bomb dropped on the churchyard on 4th May 1941.

SX8570 : St Mary, Wolborough, Devon - Pulpit

© John Salmon

MONUMENTS: include canopied table tomb to William Balcall, c1516.

Monument to Sir Richard Reynell (of Forde House, Torquay Road (qv)), 1634, with 2 alabaster supine figures, to the front of the tomb is a smaller female figure lying sideways, and to the base is supine baby.

Memorial slabs in the floors of the aisles, of stone and slate, are C17 and C18.

STAINED GLASS: some fragments of mediaeval glass have been repositioned in the south-west corner, some C19 glass is by Kempe (with a wheatsheaf signature) including a fine Evangelists scene of 1890.