Church of St Thomas a Becket Bridford, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

BRIDFORD BRIDFORD SX 88 NW 2/44 Church of St Thomas A Becket 30.6.61 GV I Parish church. Chancel C14, remainder of church C15 with some early C16 fittings. Granite rubble and ashlar with slate roof and granite, volcanic and freestone dressings. Plan: West tower, nave, chancel, 4-bay north aisle, south porch, lean-to north-east vestry. Exterior: Rubblestone chancel with a 3-light Decorated east window. The south side has a buttress with set-offs, a chamfered rounded priest's doorway, a 1-light cusped C19 Ham Hill window to the left and a medieval Decorated volcanic 2-light window to the right with a C19 hood mould and a rectangular ashlar granite rood stair turret. Granite ashlar nave with an unusually large, grand Perpendicular window to the right of the porch with a granite frame, freestone Perpendicular tacery and mullions with capitals; smaller 3-light Perpendicular window to left of porch with granite mullions and freestone tracery. Granite ashlar 4-bay north aisle with 3-light Perpendicular windows with granite mullions and C19 freestone tracery; similar east window; 2-light square-headed granite west window with decayed cusped freestone heads and replaced granite mullions. 3 stage battlemented granite ashlar tower, the belfry stage rubblestone with corner obelisks and internal northwest stair turret. Double-chamfered rounded west doorway; 3-light decorated west window with volcanic tracery and granite mullions; 2-light chamfered belfry openings on all 4 faces; moulded rectangular opening at bellringers' stage on south face. Gabled granite ashlar porch with angle buttresses with set-offs; rounded, moulded granite outer doorway with C19 timber gates and a moulded inner doorway with a C17 plank and coverstrip door. Unusually refined Perpendicular boarded wagon roof, boarded behind the ribs to porch: the ribs carved with beaded ribbons with delicately-carved bosses at the intersections. Interior: Remarkable early C16 screen and other good fittings. Unplastered walls; timber chancel arch at junction between nave and chancel roof; plain tower arch; conventional late C15/early C16 Perpendicular granite north arcade. Probably Perpendicular ceiled wagon roof to nave and aisle, carved bosses to the nave; C19 keeled boarded wagon to the chancel with moulded ribs. Notable 8-bay rood screen, said to have once had a 1508 date: the rood loft and coving are missing, but what survives is richly carved and coloured with unusual lively carved, (rather than painted) wainscot figures, probably the model for the C17 figures on the Lustleigh screen. Granite doorframe to rood loft stair, rebated for a door. The pulpit is formed of similar panels. 4-bay Perpendicular traceried parclose: the parclose and rear of the rood screen have large demi-figures of a probably C17 date painted on the wainscot. The chancel has piscina with an ogival chamfered arch, C19 timber altar rail and an east window, probably by Drake of Exeter with a memorial date of 1872. Fragments of C15 stained glass in the south windows; chair made up of pieces of medieval carving in the early C19. The nave has square-headed C19 bench ends and a granite octagonal front on a volcanic stem and plinth. 1661 Royal Arms painted on a board above the south door; early C18 wall monument to Emanuel Hall, died 1703, with an inscription recording a charity, in a moulded frame on the south wall. C15 glass; the remains of a scheme by the Doddiscombsleigh atelier in the east window of the Lady chapel, includes figures and armorial bearings. Devon Nineteenth Century Churches Project Brooks, C and Evans, D, unpublished notes on the stained glass of Bridford Church. Reverend Carrington, "Parochiales Bridfordii", MS in DRO includes description of changes to the church in the early C19.

Listing NGR: SX8160486385