Church of St Michael and All Angels

Details

SS 2006 - 2106 BUDE-STRATTON BUDE

11/159 Church of St Michael and - All Angels

- II

Parish church, originally built as Chapel of Ease to Stratton Parish Church. Designed 1834 by George Wightwick for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet and enlarged 1878 by Edward Ashworth for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Baronet. Dressed yellow Trerice porphyry with slate roof. original build in the lancet style of nave, chancel, north porch, corresponding south vestry, west tower with gabled belfry. Chancel rebuilt and north and south transepts added 1877-1878. South-east vestry added 1896. Baptistry on site of 1834 vestry added 1914. Restoration of 1935. Late C19 alterations sympathetic to Wightwick's original design. Shallow chancel has angle buttresses with set-offs and triple lancet east window with continuous hoodmould with label stops. Blind quatrefoil above east window. North and south sides have buttresses with off-sets, angle buttresses to east and west ends and 4 tall chamfered lancet windows. North and south transepts have north and south triple lancets under superordinate pointed arch. Gabled west end choir projection has triple lancet under continuous hoodmould with label stops. In the gable is a recessed clock opening under a pointed hoodmould with label stops. Narrow lancets on either side of clock. Gabled belfry at west end has coped gable and openings. 2 bells in openings. Single lancet windows to vestry. Baptistry has heavily-moulded arched east doorway, round-headed windows to south side and large quatrefoil window to west end. Tall gabled north porch has set-back buttresses, coped gable and chamfered arched doorway. Interior. Nave has diagonally boarded roof above 4 trusses of 1834. Trusses are queen post with subsidiary vertical posts above a tie beam supported on arch braces carried on carved corbels. Moulded pendants below each queen post and 4 ogee struts above tie beam. All timbers, including purlins, moulded. Moulded string at dado level rises to form hoodmould of north door. Large statue niche above north door and entrance to baptistry. Castellated chamfered pilasters between transepts and nave. Simple chamfered arch into west projection and similar arch to chancel. Double chamfered arches into transepts. Benches of 1834. Pulpit of 1903 on moulded stone plinth has timber traceried panels. 2 deeply-moulded 1914 Purbeck arches carried on moulded piers with detached shafts lead into baptistry. Rectangular 1914 font carried on stem and 4 corner shafts has fine angels carved on corners and semi-circular arches carved on sides. Baptistry has barrel roof. Frieze of animals and birds in gesso, probably 1935, in north transept. Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, inherited the Arundell lands including Ebbingford Manor (q.v.) and Trerice in 1802. The Acland family was largely responsible for the C19 development of Bude and played a leading role in the Bude Canal scheme. George Wightwick of Plymouth was John Foulston's partner and succeeded to Foulston's architectural practice. He designed a number of buildings in Bude for Sir Thomas Acland, 10th Baronet including the Storm Tower (q.v.) and buildings on the Breakwater. He regarded the building of St Michael and All Angels, Bude as an important step in his career and published an illustrated description of it in The Architectural Magazine arguing for a consistent historical style for new churches, "with as strict a regard as may be to the laws of perfect harmony". He instituted the "Blue Friars" club in Plymouth, a select literary and convivial club to which Sir Thomas Dyke Acland belonged as a 'lay' member. Wightwick's views on church architecture developed in opposition to the High Church Revival and the ecclesiologists, effectively excluding him from a rich source of nineteenth-century patronage in the south west. George Wightwick "A few Observations on the reviving Taste for Pointed Architecture, with an illustrated Description of a Chapel just erected at Bude Haven, under the Direction of the Author", The Architectural Magazine, vol. II, 1835 pp.342-348. "George Wightwick", Old Cornwall, vol.IX, no. 7, Autumn 1982, pp.338-351; vol.IX, No. 8, Spring 1983, pp.402-414. Devon C19 Churches Project.

Listing NGR: SS2053106191

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

64741

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Architectural Magazine in Architectural Magazine, Vol. 2, (1835), 342-348
Old Cornwall in Old Cornwall, Vol. 9, (1982), 338-351
Old Cornwall in Old Cornwall, Vol. 9, (1983), 402-414

End of official list entry

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