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Uffculme

from

Some Old Devon Churches

By J. Stabb

London: Simpkin et al (1908-16)

Page 241

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.

UFFCULME. St. Mary the Virgin. The church consists of chancel, nave, north and south aisles, north and south porches, and a tower with spire, containing six bells cast in 1801 from a previous peal of five, but at the rebuilding of the tower in 1849 the tenor was recast by Mears of London. The rood screen [plate 241] is the longest in Devonshire - 67 feet. The type is rare, the tracery very like that at Halberton. The portion across the south aisle is new, but has been well copied from the old.

The pulpit dates from 1719: the carved panel in front evidently does not form part of the original pulpit. There is an organ gallery at the west end of the nave, the Jacobean front and side are said to date from 1627. The font, reredos, and east window are comparatively modern, 1843. The stone altar is probably of the same date. The south aisle was built in 1847. The tower was rebuilt and the spire added in 1849. The angel with trumpet, originally on the top of the old canopy of the pulpit, has recently been restored to the church.

In the north aisle are two ancient monuments, one has three effigies, richly coloured, of a man and a woman with a youth between them, the male and female figures are holding books and the youth a scroll; the side of the tomb is panelled and has two male busts, there are Latin inscriptions on the margin, and on the upper slab four rhyming lines in English. The shields display the arms of the Walrond, Speccott, and Kelleway families.

The incumbents of Uffculme were at first rectors, they are now vicars. The list of rectors commences in 1275.

The registers date: baptisms, 1542; marriages, 1538; burials, 1538.