St David's Church, Exeter

Heritage listing

Details 871/1/3 ST DAVID'S HILL (east side) Church of St David 29-JAN-53 I 1897-9 by W.D Caröe. MATERIALS: squared, coursed, roughly tooled grey Devon limestone with Bath and Portland stone dressings. Slate roofs; shingled and lead capped spirelets on the west turrets. PLAN: Nave, chancel, north and south passage aisles, west narthex, north east tower, north and south transepts, north chapel, south east vestry, passages north and south of the chancel, with an organ chamber extending over the latter and also a vestry, crypt at east end. EXTERIOR: this is a large, highly distinctive building in a freely-treated Gothic style based upon the architecture of the late Middle Ages. It is most commonly seen from the main road between the centre of Exeter and St David's station and from this viewing point it presents the boldly massed tower, chancel, north chapel and north aisle and transept. The tower and chancel especially have complex geometry with deep recesses. The tower is of three stages and is relatively plain in its lower two storeys but the belfry is a tour de force. It has deep diagonal buttresses which are emphasised by the fact that the pairs of two-light, louvred belfry openings are deeply set back. There is also a buttress rising between the pairs of windows which have Perpendicular tracery. On the south west face of the tower there is a demi-octagonal stair turret which rises above the plain parapet of the tower to terminate in a timber capping with a thin spike on top of it. The chancel has many angular forms, for example the parapet with broad merlons and embrasures, flat pilaster buttresses, and stepping of the bottom of the parapet round the seven-light east window. The east window itself is deeply set and has a pair of detached buttresses in front of the prin

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.