St Peter’s, Tawstock, North Devon

3rd April 2024

St Peter’s is located at the foot of the hill below Tawstock Court in the Taw Valley, Devon

St Peter’s Tawstock

Tawstock Court (now a wedding and corporate events venue) was occupied by St Michael’s Preparatory School until its closure in 2012

The church (a cruciform church) is very unusual in having a tower over the crossing and not as usual at the west end.

St Peter’s Tawstock

“Built in the 14th century with some materials dating from two hundred years before, the church has undergone significant refurbishments in the succeeding years. Notable among these efforts to ensure the church’s structural survival was the restoration of 1867-8 by Sir Gilbert Scott at the time when the Revd Henry Bourchier Wrey was the vicar. The Bourchier Wrey family owned Tawstock Court at that time. Refurbishment costs amounted to £1300 and involved re-roofing the chancel and re-seating the nave.

In the 1990s, further significant work was undertaken with the principal aim of restoring as many on the church’s 49 monuments as funds would allow. Among these monuments are many in memory of members of the Bouchier-Wrey family, generations of whom owned and occupied Tawstock Court. English Heritage was engaged at the time to produce a report on the condition of the monuments following which a fundraising campaign was undertaken. The substantial sum of £100,000 was raised, enabling roughly a quarter of the monuments to be restored.” (Parish Website)

The Taw Valley opening out beyond

The west window with organ beneath

The chancel contains a rare wooden effigy of a medieval lady (on the left)

In the south chapel is the monument to Frances, Lady Fitzwarren, one of the first classical tombs in Devon

The north transept contains a wooden gallery brought from Tawstock Court in the 18th Century, where charity boards meticulously record the donations of the local gentry for the relief of the poor.

The “Bourchier Pew” (or “Manorial Pew”) on the left in the north transept was made in about 1550 in Franco-Flemish early Renaissance style,and decorated with Bourchier knots, it was used by the lords of the manor of Tawstock. The unusual and small manorial pew has been mistaken for a confessional due to its box-like appearance.

Tawstock Court on the hill behind St Peter’s Church

Memorial bench to James Eveleigh outside the church wall

Outside the church wall is a beautiful memorial bench to James Eveleigh who was a former pupil of Colston’s School, Bristol where I taught for all my professional career. Jim attended the school before my time but his contemporaries talked of him as quite a legend. I was pleased to meet Jim when he revisited the school shortly before he died. One of his contemporaries, Pat Bowrey, sent me a wonderful obituary of Jim which I published in a blog I kept when I was president of the Old Colstonian Society in 2014. Please follow this link to Jim Eveleigh’s obituary.

Slideshow of my photos of St Peter’s Church :