Cullompton, Devon

Excepting Exeter Cathedral St Andrew, open [Jenkins rating ***], was without doubt the church of the day. As soon as you set eyes on the astonishing tower and south aisle you know you're in for a treat, and the interior lives up to, and exceeds, expectations. There's some good glass [Burne Jones & GER Smith], a high quality wagon nave roof with angels, a restored rood screen of eleven bays stretching the width of the aisles and chancel, very good nave pier capitals and the totally unexpected fan vaulting in the south [Lane] aisle with unusual carved figures on the columns. Best of all is the unique, in my experience, Golgotha.

ST ANDREW. As one cannot help approaching the church from the W, the W tower will always be examined first. It is, however, the last part in order of time, built only in the decade of the Reformation: 1545-9(arms of Bishop Vesey of Exeter). It is 100 ft. tall with stair-turret. The material is the local red sandstone, with the carved parts in Beer and Ham Hill stone. Above the main W window three large panels with figures, the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St John, in the centre; the shafts flanking the panels as over decorated as the Tiverton porch. The buttresses have three orders of gargoyles under pinnacles, the battlements are pierced, and the top is crowned by a good number of pinnacles: at each angle five, and one more in the middle of each side. The other show-side is the outer S aisle, the famous Lane Aisle, built by John Lane, a wool merchant, c. 1525-6. He died in 1528. The S porch is in place of the W bay of the inner s aisle. An inscription commemorating the donor runs at a comfortably low level along the W wall of the Lane Aisle so that everybody entering the church should be able to read it and think of the donor. No false modesty amongst the rich men of the late Middle Ages. The Lane Aisle has large windows separated by buttresses with ships and emblems as decoration (cf. the Greenway Aisle at Tiverton). Amongst the emblems are sheep-shears, the astrological symbol for tin, and monograms. The battlements are decorated, as indeed they are on the N side of the church too. Below the battlements of the Lane Aisle a frieze with scenes from the life of Christ.

On entering one finds a large, long, light interior: six bays of nave with aisles, and the Lane Aisle in addition. All the windows in the aisles are of four lights, and there is a clerestory, a rarity in Devon. No structural division  interferes between nave and chancel. In fact, the boarded wagon-roof, on angel brackets and with cross-ribs to all the panels (as it is usually only done for ‘ceilures’), runs right through. The piers are tall and thin of type B section, the capitals standard but with heads and figures besides leaves. The Lane Aisle is separated from the S aisle by curious piers, buttressed towards the aisle (for no structural reason). These buttresses have small figures of saints in two tiers on their N, E, and W faces, sculpturally not specially good. The aisle is fan-vaulted, a gorgeous effect, inspired by the Dorset Aisle at Ottery St Mary which, in its turn, may reflect the Sherborne vault of c. 1475. The pendants have emblems of the Passion of Christ and also shears and the symbol for tin. On the floor is John Lane’s tomb-stone, the brass effigy lost.

SCREENS. The rood screen looks splendid right across the church, and glowing in warm sombre colours (renewed - who knows how often? In 1849, for example). It is coved to E and W, has the original cornice and standard type A tracery. The rocks and skulls and bones which formed the basis of the rood are preserved and displayed in the Lane Aisle. The rood beam high up also still exists. The S parclose screen is similar but more cusped, the N parclose screen shows a curious straightening out of all the curves of Gothic arches, probably a very late attempt at putting reason into Gothic traditions. – BOX PEWS, low, early C19, also SQUIRE’S PEW in the N chancel chapel. - WEST GALLERY. Jacobean on Ionic columns, like the screen as wide as nave and aisles together. The panels have the usual blank arches on stumpy pilasters and are separated by caryatids. - STAINED GLASS. C19, e.g. S aisle first from E by Drake 1892, second from E by Morris & Co., 1904. - CHEST. Iron-bound. - PLATE. Paten plain by R.N., 1658; two Chalices with covers, late C17, one marked I.R. 1680; domed Flagon by Elston of Exeter, 1737. - MONUMENTS. Slab with foliated Cross in the S porch, interesting design, growing like a tree, sun and moon on sides.

CULLOMPTON. Only three fine buildings last century escaped the fire which destroyed 200 houses in this Culm Valley town. The grandest is the‘ church, and there is a gabled 17th century manor house with rich carving under its windows. A next-door neighbour called the Waldrons, begun the year Elizabeth died, has a secret cupboard and much fine old carving. As long ago as the 14th century the town made its main street fresh and clean by dividing a little tributary of the Culm so that it runs on each side of the road.

The purple-red stone of its church tower rises over 100 feet, impressive with its eight pinnacles, its richly carved niches, its traceried belfry windows, and a Crucifixion scene crumbling away after about four centuries. This lovely tower is 16th century and leads us into a church which was here 100 years before it.

A little strange is the first thing we see, the remains of another Crucifixion scene now in the porch of the tower. Here are two blocks of oak shaped like rocks and carved with skulls and crossbones, the work of medieval craftsmen and unlike anything we have seen elsewhere. These wooden rocks were the base of a Calvary which once stood above the painted rood-beam still held up by angels over the chancel screen. They came down from their high place at the Reformation, and nothing else like them has survived in this country.

But the magnificent screen has survived, a fine possession still stretching more than 50 feet across the nave and aisles, its three old doors still swinging on their hinges. Row upon row of delicate carving adorns the canopy. Two other old screens flank the chancel, one having seven angels with wings outspread in the cornice; and there are more carved figures between the arches of the Jacobean gallery. On the 15th century capitals of the north arcade are quaint men and women and birds, more flying angels, men forming a ring with their arms, and heads peeping from foliage.

We lift our eyes from this wealth of carving to the glorious oak roof above the nave and chancel, supported by a host of golden angels, its bosses carved and gilded, its frieze a trailing vine. Its strength and richness are in contrast to the delicate tracery above the beautiful south aisle, the chantry of John Lane.

This rich wool merchant built this chantry in 1526 as a last resting-place for himself and his family, and he builded well. The 12 vaults of its magnificent roof spring from angel corbels, and the bosses have pendants of angels. In the buttresses of the pillars dividing the chantry from the nave are nearly 50 saints. John Lane’s shears are carved on the outside with many other merchant marks, ships, and grotesque animals, and above all is a fine pierced parapet. Well may we be grateful today to the wool merchant who left us all this loveliness.

One of the windows has rich glass designed by Burne-Jones showing Samuel, Enoch, John Baptist, and Timothy, with small scenes below. In two of the other windows are 16 pictures from the Acts, and a third has pictures from the life of Barnabas in a setting of roses.

The peace memorial is an alabaster panel with four angels kneeling above two scenes eloquent of the unhappiest days of our own time, one showing a man exchanging his spade for a rifle, the other with an angel holding a wreath above a soldier. One other memorial we notice before we leave, a plain tablet bearing the name of George Ewens, killed in France in 1916 through refusing to leave his comrades. It is a sister’s tribute to a brave brother.

In the cemetery lies an explorer who died at Cullompton in 1935. He was Mr W. J. A. Grant, who had been to the Arctic nine times. His scientific discoveries brought him the Arctic Medal, and Cape Grant in Franz Josef Land keeps his name alive. His last voyage was up the Amazon when he was over 80, but in his last years he was so ill that he only looked forward to death.

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