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Northleigh

from

Some Old Devon Churches

By J. Stabb

London: Simpkin et al (1908-16)

Page 171

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.

NORTHLEIGH. St. Giles. The church [plate 171] consists of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch, and west tower with four bells. There is a dark screen across the chancel of three compartments, with wide openings and depressed arcades. The groining remains, but there are practically no cornice, only a deep cresting. The lower panels are carved with the linen-fold pattern. The doors are missing. In the north aisle there is another screen of different design; it was evidently a parclose screen, and consists of two four-light divisions in square-headed compartments, and a doorway on the south side. The cornice consists of a double row of carving, but there is no cresting, the linen-fold is on the lower panels.

There are some fine bench ends, with traceried faces and scroll borders, and a Jacobean pulpit. There are piscinas in the chancel and north aisle, and there is an old font. In the east window of the the north aisle is some very fine ancient glass, representing St. Peter holding the key, St. Paul with a sword, and a bishop in mitre and full vestments holding his staff. In the vestry is preserved the old bulbous-legged communion table; in this case the legs are plain and not carved as at Farway.

The registers date: baptisms, 1700; marriages, 1708; burials, 1697.