Butterleigh

from

Some Old Devon Churches

By J. Stabb

London: Simpkin et al (1908-16)

Page 48

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.

BUTTERLEIGH. St. Matthew. The church consists of chancel, nave, north aisle, divided from three arches, west tower with three bells, and south porch with corbels of the heads of a king and a queen.

The church has been restored, the original church was enlarged by Dr. Peter Muden, a Dutchman, who married one of the Courtenays; she died in 1624, and had a monument in the church.

There is a modern rood screen of four bays and a doorway. There is no groining and the lights are without tracery. There is a floriated cross and six candlesticks on the beam. There is a piscina in the chancel, and the east window has a king's and a queen's head for corbels, as in the porch. There is an old Norman font, but it has been so much scraped it is not of great interest. There is an old money box dating from 1629, with the initials "I.P." and the following inscription:-

This boxe
is frelie gi
ven to recea
ve almes for ye
poore.

The registers date from 1698.