Church History, continued...

A Brief – but longer than the page before – History of St. Andrew’s Church, Harberton, near Totnes, Devon

As far as churches in the South-West of England are concerned there is very little documentary evidence from the British, Saxon, or Early Norman periods, particularly for specific local places. Quite clearly a reasonably complex organisation existed from a fairly early date, and much of this would have been incorporated into the later regional structures. Few records from this period exist for individual churches in the South West, but it is thought probable that there was some form of church in Harberton from the Saxon period.

The earliest physical evidence of a church in Harberton is the Anglo-Norman Font carved from sandstone, which you will see to your left as you enter the church. This has been tentatively dated to the late 11th century. The most common survivals from the Norman period in Devon’s parish churches are fonts. The point at which a church acquired baptismal rights was crucial to its evolution from ‘local’ status under a minster’s authority to independent ‘parish’ status within the diocese. Acquisition of fonts may therefore have been intimately connected with parochial community development in the twelfth century.

However, Harberton is not even mentioned in the Domesday Book of AD 1086, since at that date it formed part of the royal estate of Chillington, and was not formally separated from this until AD 1206 when the Honour of Totnes was divided between William de Braose, who was awarded that part of the estate which remained as the Honour of Totnes, and Henry de Nonant who was awarded the newly named Honour of Hurberton. Soon after 1206 the Honour of Harberton was transferred to the Valletort family, who already held the Honour of Trematon in Cornwall, following a dispute between Roger III de Nonant and King John who seized Roger’s part of the Barony of Totnes back into crown ownership.

The first documented reference to a church in Harberton, indeed the first known use of the name Harberton itself, does not occur until circa AD 1108, when the churches of Kingsteignton, Harberton, East Allington and West Alvington were presented to form a a new prebend of Teignton Regis for Salisbury Cathedral.

The first documented reference to a vicar of Harberton, whose name was Benedict, occurs in a list of signatories on a deed for land transfers around Totnes castle dated circa AD 1160, which also included Henry de Nonant, and his brother Roger de Nonant.

The Harberton church remained under the control of Salisbury Cathedral until around AD 1235, when a deal struck between the authorities of the cathedrals of Salisbury and of Exeter allowed that ‘the church of Hurberton, with its chapels and profits would go to the perpetual use of the daily distribution of the canons of Exeter’

In AD 1244 there was a licence from Bishop William Briwer, dated the 15th of April, authorising the Dean and Chapter of Exeter to enter into the possession of the church of Hurbretone with its Chapels when it should be vacant, and to apply its revenue to the uses of the daily distribution of the canons of Exeter cathedral, and in AD 1245 this was confirmed by a papal bull of Pope Innocent IV.

Around AD 1274, during Walter Bronescombe’s bishopric, a document exists which is a return, by the Rural Dean and Chapter of Totnes, to the Archdeacon of Totnes with regard to the great and small tithes of the church of Harberton. This document gives some indication of the relative importance of Harberton at that date, as in addition to the church of St Andrew’s it includes the chapel of St Leonard, Halwell, then a daughter church of Harberton, but now a separate parish, the chapel of All Saints at Leigh, and chapels at Luscombe, Washbourne, and Englebourne.

Late in the thirteenth century the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral instigated the rebuilding of whatever church then existed in Harberton, and the new chancel, which is the earliest part of the current church building, was completed some time before the end of the thirteenth century, as we have a record from AD 1301 of a survey, undertaken for the Bishop of Exeter by two inspectors named Robert de Veteri Terra [Robert Oldfield!] and John de Uphaverne, who visited Harberton on the 30th of June 1301. Their report contains a statement that ‘the chancel has been newly built by the Chapter in a handsome manner.’

By common tradition at this date the ecclesiastical owners were responsible for the upkeep of the chancel of any church that they controlled, whereas the parish itself was responsible for the rest of the church building. The fine trefoil headed Piscina and the triple Sedilia on the south side of the Chancel are in the Decorated style, probably date from this early period.

Following the completion by the Exeter authorities of the building of a new chancel for the church in Harberton, the rest of the building was slowly constructed over the next couple of centuries. Presumably the two major outbreaks of the Black Death in England, which in 1348/9 resulted in the deaths of about one third of the population, and in its recurrence in 1360/1 resulted in the deaths of about another fifth of the population, did nothing to help with such building work!

Dating evidence for the rest of the church is not particularly well documented, and the only real date of interest is AD 1436 when Edmund Lacy, the then Bishop of Exeter, issued an Indulgence offering 40 days off purgatory for anyone contributing to the repairs or continuing support for the building of the parochial church of Hurberton.

The English Heritage Listing for St. Andrew’s suggests that the Nave and North and South Aisles were probably completed by the mid 15th century, and the South Porch and Tower by the late 15th or early 16th century. Since then no major structural work has been done externally, although a number of internal additions, modifications and improvements have taken place. The fine mediaeval architecture of the building is in the Perpendicular style, the Nave and Side Aisles having Barrel Roofs handsomely decorated with carved Wooden Bosses, some showing people in mediaeval dress, and including a half-profile Green Man, and two which possibly represent the heads of Richard the Third (who wears a hat pulled down over his right ear) and his wife.

Across the body of the church, separating the Chancel from the Nave, there is a magnificent 15th century Rood Screen. Hoskyns suggests that many of the beautiful rood screens of Devon can probably be assigned to the period 1400-1450 and are to be associated with the completion of some reconstruction of the fabric, such as the enlargement of the nave or the chancel (or both) that made the construction of a screen necessary or desirable. Originally, above the Screen there would have been a central Rood or Crucifix, with a figure of St Mary on one side and of St John on the other side. These were usually taken down and destroyed during the reign of Edward IV, and often the figures on the screens themselves were defaced. Our screen was substantially restored and repainted in AD 1871. During this work the mediaeval panels were replaced by more durable paintings on metal, but a number of the original panels have been recovered and are to be found in two glazed cases at the rear of the church. The set of eight figures were apparently found stored above the Rood Screen during a re-plastering of the church in 1965, and the set of five figures were subsequently found in 1966 in a local landowner’s attic, where they had been hidden since the time of the screen restoration!

The 15th century carved stone octagonal Pulpit contains a series of seven figures of apostles or saints, which are thought to be 17th century replacements, of Flemish origin, for the originals which were probably destroyed during the Reformation.

The Tower at the West end of the church holds a peal of six bells that were cast in AD 1762 by Thomas Bilbie of Collumpton, and were rehung in AD 1896. There is evidence that as early as AD 1553 the church possessed a peal of 4 bells. In the Tower there is a Clock, given in AD 1898 by Sir Robert Harvey of Dundridge. This has only two exterior faces on the South and West sides of the tower so that the time cannot be seen from the rival landowner at Tristford.

In AD 1765 the Vicar’s report to the Exeter authorities says that the seats in the body of the church were aligned East to West ‘the church is regularly pewed with wainscot, ye seats facing each other’ and there was a gallery at the North end of the church. This arrangement was maintained well into the 19th century, and in AD 1828, the church was re-seated on the same alignment and the galleries were extended using a generous grant from the Society for the Enlargement of Churches and Chapels, which increased the available seating by a further 240 places of which 225 were free! However in AD 1861 a major re-organisation of the seating resulted in what is substantially the current layout, and the gallery was foreshortened.

In AD 1862 a ‘Father Willis’ Organ was given to the church and was installed in the West Gallery, but in AD 1911 it was moved to its present position in the North East corner of the church, in what had previously been the Englebourne Chapel. Following this the East gallery was finally removed.

It the South East corner of the church is the Lady Chapel in which can be seen a memorial to a Major Farquharson V.C. who was born in Scotland, and was a member of the 42nd Royal Highlanders (The Black Watch). He was a distant cousin of Robert Bartholomew, the Vicar of Harberton. His medal for bravery in the siege of Lucknow in AD 1858, and he later took part in the Ashanti campaign in the 1870s where he was badly wounded. Returning to England he died in Harberton Vicarage in AD 1875 and is buried in the churchyard.

The beautifully coloured Stained Glass Windows in the church are almost all from the Victorian period, being gifts from the major local landowners of the time at Tristford House and DundridgeHouse. Of particular interest is a window in the North wall in memory of Tito, a son of Robert Harvey of Dundridge who died tragically in AD 1895 in his 11th year. His effigy is below the window, having been brought into the church in AD 1897 from the family Mausoleum in the churchyard, due to its deteriorating condition.

Above the South doorway inside the church is a Royal Coat of Arms that used to be on the front of the West Gallery but was moved to its present position in AD 1857. It represents the Arms of Queen Anne in the form she adopted following the Act of Union in AD 1707 as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

In AD 1898 the Sanctuary was re-floored with red and white Belgian and Spanish marble and a new Reredos of alabaster and mosaic was constructed, the central panel showing the figure of Christ enthroned, surrounded by the four evangelists traditionally represented as the four winged beasts in the Book of Revelation. The Vine on the Screen has been skilfully reproduced on the Reredos.

On the West side of the main church door there is a holy water Stoup, where worshippers would ritually wash their fingers before entering the church to take Holy Communion. Two of the Bosses in the finely carved roof of the Porch reputedly represent Henry IV and his wife Joan of Navarre. Above the door inside the church Porch there is a tablet bearing the scriptural text ‘Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Sanctuary. I am the Lord.’ During recent restoration work on the porch this tablet was removed, revealing a niche that would probably have contained a statue of the Virgin Mary, or possibly of St. Andrew, to which worshippers would have bent as they entered the sacred building, one of the practices discontinued during the period of Protestant reforms in the mid seventeenth century under King Edward the Sixth.

Outside the church is a cross, the base of which was a mediaeval Palm Cross, the top of which was possibly removed in the mid seventeenth century reforms. The Vicar’s returns of AD 1765 record ‘some remains of an ancient cross in the churchyard.’ The mid nineteenth century print of the church shows only the stump remaining. The cross was imaginatively restored in AD 1896 by Hems of Exeter for Sir Robert Harvey.