Buckerell

from

Some Old Devon Churches

By J. Stabb

London: Simpkin et al (1908-16)

Page 40

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.

BUCKERELL. St. Mary and St. Giles. The church is cruciform in shape and consists of chancel, nave, north and south transepts, and west tower. The screen [plate 40] of four bays is across the chancel arch. It retains its groining, cornice of three rows, and the lower cresting, the upper is missing. An unusual feature is the thickened central mullions which divide the fenestrations. The screen is of dark oak, the part below the bays has been very plainly restored!

The nave has a plastered wagon roof with bosses of no particular merit. There is a piscina in the chancel; a west gallery with organ, an old pulpit, and font, and the old box pews. In the north wall of the nave is a niche for a statue, but the figure is missing.

The registers date: baptisms, 1650; marriages, 1654; burials, 1653.