St Mary's Church, Atherington - geograph

Atherington is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the North Devon district of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England, about 8 miles south of

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 391. The church of St Mary is Perpendicular and was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

J. L. Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency ...

in 1884. The church has a screen and gallery dating back 400 years, as well as a roodloft stairway of the same age. In the loft are

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

heraldic Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branc ...

panels. There is also a 15th-century screen across the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, and a

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

of the same period. The north aisle part of the screen retains the original canopy and as such is unique in Devon (it was carved by two craftsmen from Chittlehampton c. 1540). The chancel section was brought here from Umberleign c. 1800. The benches have elaborate carved ends, and there is some very old

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

.Betjeman, John, ed. (1968) ''Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches; the South''. London: Collins; p. 159

Umberleigh railway station Umberleigh railway station serves the village of Umberleigh in Devon, England. It is on the Tarka Line to , from at milepost 205.75 from . History The station was opened by the North Devon Railway on 1 August 1854. The railway was single t ...

is located in the nearby village of

Umberleigh Umberleigh is a former large manor within the historic hundred of (North) Tawton, but today a small village in North Devon in England. It used to be an ecclesiastical parish, but following the building of the church at Atherington it became ...

which is a couple of miles away.

References

External links

Atherington pavilion and playing field web site

Devon County Council history page
Villages in Devon {{Devon-geo-stub