St Saviour

Church building had commenced earlier in the C14 but it was enlarged in the late C14/early C15.

The town corporation owned the advowson between 1585-1835

were responsible for the major refurbishment of 1633-7.

slate roofs with pierced and crested ridge tiles.

Eastern end of the nave rebuilt in the late C15 with a new rood screen , possibly with the transepts.

In 1633-7 the tower heightened, new windows to the aisles and the gallery erected as part of major refurbishment.

In the late C19 a major restoration in 2 phases in which the church was reroofed, the chancel stripped of its C17 furnishings and "restored", the organ "enlarged", and the vestry built.

EXTERIOR: Tall unbuttressed west tower, its upper stage from the C17 with embattled parapet and corner pinnacles.

Restored west doorway, a 2-centred arch with shafts and carved arch under hoodmould, contains C19 door.

South doorway a C17 two-centred arch with ovolo-moulded surround.

North and south aisles have C17 windows with unusual tracery of intersecting curves and large cinquefoil roundels to the gallery.

Western 2 bays are C14.

Eastern 3 bays rebuilt in the C15 with taller arches, Pevsner's B-type profiles to the piers, carved capitals and carved fleurons and other motifs to the arches (one has an almost continuous leaf scroll).

Other piscinas in the transepts, low cinquefoil head and projecting bowl below a row of 3 plain niches in the north transept, and a double cusped ogee arch with carved tracery in the spandrels with traces of old painted colour in the south transept.

Tudor-arch doorway from the south chapel to the vestry containing a Gothic-style door.

Nave and aisles have flagged floors including a large number of C17 and C18 ledger stones.

Section at the east end, a series of C19 brasses have a border of polychrome marble.

Rood screen: 1496 according to the church accounts.

Very high quality carved oak.

Perpendicular window tracery above wainscotting with blind tracery Carved Gothic coving and intricately carved and undercut frieze and low crest.

Later parclose screens, bearing the arms and initials of James Pelliton, mayor in 1567-8, standard tracery with carved frieze to match the rood screen.

West gallery: Dated 1633.

Oak carving in same style as contemporary fronts of merchants' houses.

Richly carved bressummer.

Frontal divided into bays by standards carved as Ionic columns, panels (painted with the arms of mayors, recorders and other prominent Dartmouth men) with richly carved rails and muntins under a grille of tiny turned balusters to the handrail.

Good early C18 stair, open string with carved stair brackets, slender turned balusters with blocks and moulded flat handrail.

FITTINGS: South door, although dated 1631, has excellent probably C15 ironwork featuring 2 lions across a tree with large leaves.

Remarkable painted altar table made in 1893 from a late C16 communion table using carvings of the Evangelists as the legs.

South chapel lined with C17 panelling (a section cut away to reveal a small brass) and some later panelling.

Rare C15 painted stone pulpit, tall and encrusted with carved decoration - slender octagonal panelled stem widens above like a palm to octagonal drum (with timber door) which has broad bands of foliage top, bottom and up the corners, narrow panels originally undecorated but symbols of royal authority added with the initials of Charles II.

C19 timber eagle lectern with carved decoration to stem and base.

Brass lectern in south transept chapel.

Low screen to south transept made up from pieces of C17 panelling, and chapel there includes a panelled stall dated 1630.

South transept has altar dating from 1902 and contemporary ornate reredos built in same style and colour scheme as nearby rood screen and includes a ceramic mosaic.

Plain C14 stone font with circular stem and octagonal bowl.

Brass candelabra in nave from 1708.

At west end of the south aisle 2 large painted charity boards recording charitable bequests between 1490-1700, the larger one a former reredos surmounted by a wooden model of a bible open at Luke VII, and flanked by Commandment boards

Chancel and nave have hatchments of the Seale family.

MEMORIALS: The chancel floor includes one of the most important brasses in Devon, commemorating John Hawley, shipowner, 3-times mayor of Dartmouth and major benefactor of the church,

Nearby another brass commemorating the death of Gilbert Staplehill in 1637.

Several good ledger stones, but the oldest and most interesting is a fragment of a slate slab near the pulpit engraved with the figure of a priest in eucharistic vestments.

Oldest mural monuments are in the chancel - on the north side, small monument to Nicholas Hayman has pilasters enriched with ribbonwork and cartouche below carved with emblems of mortality

on south side, large marble memorial to Walter Jago has Corinthian pilasters to open pediment, fluted consoles and cartouche, and smaller one below to Edward Hanbury , shaped with urn at the top and arms below.

Good monument in north transept to Roger Vavasoir and son Henry , signed by Jo.

Corinthian pilasters to moulded cornice and open segmental pediment with central flaming urn and allegoric figures on the pediment, tearful putti on the sill, and massive console brackets flanking a heraldic cartouche.

Large late C17-style monument in the south transept apparently commemorating the refurbishment of the chapel in 1902 by William Taylor and his wife Elizabeth.

Other C19 monuments in the gallery.

GLASS: Much of the glass was blown out by bombs in 1943.

Some C19 glass survived and subsequent C20 glass, notably in south chapel, 1969 by A Attwood.

Only fragments survive of C17 heraldic glass in the aisles and includes an oval glass plaque recording the payment for window glass by the merchant Thomas Pagge in 1634.

The church forms the focus for the New Quay area of Dartmouth where several houses survive with architectural parallels to the C17 carpentry and joinery in the church.