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Lapford

from

Some Old Devon Churches

By J. Stabb

London: Simpkin et al (1908-16)

Page 143

Transcribed and edited by Dr Roger Peters

Full text available at

https://www.wissensdrang.com/dstabb.htm

Prepared by Michael Steer

Between 1908 and 1916, John Stabb, an ecclesiologist and photographer who lived in Torquay, published three volumes of Some Old Devon Churches and one of Devon Church Antiquities. A projected second volume of the latter, regarded by Stabb himself as a complement to the former, did not materialize because of his untimely death on August 2nd 1917, aged 52. Collectively, Stabb's four volumes present descriptions of 261 Devon churches and their antiquities.

LAPFORD. St. Thomas à Becket. There was evidently a smaller building here (of which the south wall of the present building was part), in very early times, probably Saxon or Norman, served most likely by the monks at Crediton or Zeal Monachorum. In Domesday Book [1086] the village is named "Slapesford" and belonged to Earl Bectric, given him by [William] the Conqueror [r. 1066-87], but there was a very small church many a year before then of which there is no record.

When Sir William de Tracey took part in the murder of Thomas á Becket in 1170, Henry II [r. 1154-89] confiscated his property, which was a very large part of Devonshire, and ordered him to build a certain number of expiatory churches, of which Lapford was one, or rather to which he added the tower, a very small chancel and a porch. The old door with its sanctuary ring was placed in 1160 or about that date.

The rood screen [plate 143a] was evidently erected in the beginning of the 16th century, it contains much valuable and beautiful Renaissance detail [plate 143b]; taken as a whole it is like that at Atherington, but the cornices more nearly resemble those at Hartland. One of the nave lights is cut for the insertion of a 17th century reading desk, but the desk has now been removed. There is a good parclose screen.

The present vicar restored the screen about 25 years since [ca. 1885], and the Patron of the living, the Rev. J. Vicars, Rector of Calbourne, Isle of Wight, built the present chancel 36 years since [ca. 1874], and moved all the coffins under the flooring. The vicar took away three old houses which stood in the churchyard, and having bought the [village] Green, gave a portion to be added to the churchyard.

In the south wall, when the old porch fell in some twenty years ago, where it joined the old wall, there was found a cavity in which was a human face bone lying in a small heap of dust with the lid of a reliquary box; this was supposed to have been a relic of some saint to whom most likely the former church was dedicated. A figure of St. John, carved in wood, was also found during the rebuilding of the north aisle. The north aisle was built in Bishop Stapledon's time, it is thought about 1308, as his crest, which was a "knot", is on several of the bosses of the roof.

The Rev. C. W. Wilson, who has been vicar for nearly 32 years, has put in all the painted windows in the church but three, and planted all the trees in the churchyard. The organ and heating apparatus are also due to the same source.

The registers date: baptisms, 1586; marriages, 1567; and burials, 1570.