St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Chevithorne

St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Chevithorne. Listed Grade 2 by Historic England.

"A beauty, yet the vast majority of folk will pass by without enjoying this tiny delicacy." Devon Churchland

This is an edited extract from my Car Tour 5 post.

Described as neogothic and almost a "fairytale cottage", this is well worth a small diversion and a brief stop, brief, only because it is tiny.

It was originally a small chapel but was rebuilt as a parish church. Designed by Benjamin Ferrey who worked mostly in the Gothic Revival style which was so popular in the mid to late Victorian era.

After he left school Ferrey went to London and it is no surprise that he studied under Augustus Charles Pugin, whose son Augustus Pugin achieved world fame by designing the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament. Ferrey had his own very successful practice and built over 100 English parish churches.

Right next door to the small church is the vicarage designed by William Burges in 1869. It was commissioned by Sir John Heathcoat-Amory who lived at nearby Knightshayes Court, and was constructed in 1870-71.

This is the beautiful cobbled path between the church and vicarage.

This village did not originally exist as a parish in its own right. This was part of the Tiverton parish. When the Heathcoats arrived in Tiverton things took a major turn. After the now enobled Sir John bought his country estate at Knightshayes he wanted his own church so in 1889 he had the power and influence to help Chevithorne become a new parish by Act of Parliament. He built the vicarage to get on the right side of the vicar and the rest was history.

It was William Rayner the priest who started the ball rolling back in the 1840's though, by stumping up most of the cash to build what was officially a chapel at the time.

The new style at the time was neo-Gothic but there were changes going on in the church too and things were moving back towards decoration and away from clean lines and bare walls. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I after him had wiped out idolatry and popery but it was starting to sneak back in by the reign of Victoria. Here on one side of the porch is, reputedly, the young Queen Victoria herself.

The main feature of this small church is the rose window which was Rayner's brainchild. He came up with most of the money to pay for it. The whole church cost £1000 and Rayner paid £300 of that himself. It is probable that Rayner was earning around £100 per year so he presumably had independent means. He also endowed the chapel with £60 per annum.

The central section of the window features the symbols of the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Top left is the Lamb of God, to the right what looks like a swan but is more likely meant to be a pelican. The pelican is an ancient symbol for Jesus Christ. It's highly likely that the glass artist had never seen a real pelican.

Middle left and moving anti clockwise around to middle right are, a winged man symbolising Matthew, a winged ox symbolising Luke, an eagle symbolising John and a winged lion symbolising Mark.

You couldn't get more mid Victorian than this font, of 1843, carved from Caen stone. The inscription around the rim reads, "By our spirit are we all baptised into one body (Corinthians XII:XIII)"

Here we have some beautifully done stencil work which may not be original as it has a definite, later, Art Nouveau feel to it, but it works really well in any case.

This window is a feature of a small side chapel north of the nave which was added to the original church building by the Heathcoats to serve as their own place of worship.

This view from the nave into the chancel shows how church interiors were changing. Clear views through to the altar, and a light and open design with light wood and white walls and as much natural light as possible. It contrasts with earlier church interiors where screens masked off the chancel from view. Going almost unnoticed is the unobtrusive pulpit, small and on one side. The pulpit and the long sermon now becoming less of the focus of the service than previously.

There is the common sight of hand embroidered kneelers or hassocks with many different eclectic designs the most unusual for me being the children's favourite Bob the Builder. You might say about Rayner himself, "Can he build it", "Yes he can", and he did.

Here, against the lectern is a corn dolly cross, a traditional harvest decoration, protection talisman, and Christian symbol woven from the final stalks of cereal grain. Ancient European farmers believed the spirit of the grain lived in the fields. When the final crops were cut, a cross or dolly was woven from the last sheaf to give that spirit a safe home through the winter.

So here we have Animism meeting Christianity in cultural traditions that never die out, no matter how much political and ecclesiastical change there is over the centuries.

Animism is the world-view that non-human entities, including animals, plants, rocks, and rivers, possess a distinct spiritual essence or internal soul. Derived from the Latin word anima (meaning breath or soul), it treats the natural world as a community of living persons rather than inanimate objects. AI Overview

A series of images in the windows hark back to churches of the era before Henry VIII since when, symbols connected with Christ's crucifixion were frowned upon. It is the main reason Elizabeth I had the roods or crosses showing the crucifixion removed from the rood screens all over the land. You can see what I mean about rood screens in my post from the church in nearby Atherington which has a much older pedigree.

This window panel represents Gethsemane, with Judas and his silver, a sword, a cudgel and a lantern. It tells of the betrayal and arrest of Jesus. Judas received thirty pieces of silver for the betrayal while the lanterns were carried by the mob who hunted for Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane as they carried cudgels and swords.

Here is the simple but elegant Heathcoat-Amory chapel, featuring a series of memorials to the various Heathcoats and Heathcoat-Amorys. I couldn't find any information about this chapel although Historic England in its listing implied it was an addition to the original building. I spent a full hour trawling through the newspaper archive, when I eventually found this article.

Western Times - Tuesday 12 January 1892

At a cost of fully £1,400 Sir John and Lady Heathcoat Amory have restored the Church of St. Thomas, Chevithorne Tiverton. The work of restoration has indeed been thorough and complete. The Church has been re-seated, a wood flooring laid, a wing added containing a vestry, an organ chamber and the Amory Chapel, and the chancel floor has been lowered and re-laid with marble and Portland stone. These are but the chief alterations ; the work includes many details of importance, including the addition of a new organ, also the gift of the munificent benefactors of the church. The Vicar (Rev. H. Davis) and Canon Trefusis officiated at the opening service on Friday.

May the stencilling around the windows have been added during this restoration? It seems highly likely. The early 1880's saw the earliest examples of what was to blossom into Art Nouveau. The Modern Style had its roots in the earlier Arts and Crafts movement.

Across Britain, 1890s church interior touch-ups frequently substituted rigid geometric patterns with free-flowing stencilled friezes of lilies, vines, and symbolic flora reflecting the aesthetic of William Morris. The London Archives

The first memorial tablet here is to Sir John Heathcoat Amory who built this chapel. Much was written about him after his death. He served on many public bodies and institutions, member of the town council, later Mayor of the town council, The Commission of the Peace for Devon, The County Council and later Alderman, Chairman of the Governors of Blundell's School and the Heathcoat Elementary School founded by his grandfather, The Tiverton Infirmary, also founded by his grandfather, The Volunteer Force, and he was First captain of the Tiverton Rifles. He covered the expenses of more than a score of his employees as volunteers. He was a Trustee of the market, and of various charities and a local magistrate and churchwarden.

But it had all started with plain Mr. John Heathcoat, Sir John's grandfather and inventor of the machine that was to make lace a mass-produced material. John had no surviving son so the estate passed to his daughters and their families. His grandson Sir John took over the running of the family firm after his death. Sir John his grandson had been born John Amory but later adopted the additional name Heathcoat by Royal licence.

This was how it all began.

Derby Mercury - Wednesday 30 January 1861

John Heathcoat was the son of a small farmer at Long Whatton, in Leicestershire, where he was born in 1784. He was apprenticed at an early age to a frame-smith, named Samuel Caldwell, at Hathern, a neighbouring village. During his apprenticeship he acquired a complete practical knowledge of the business, and of all the mechanism of the stocking frame, and warp machines. Some parts of the latter he improved by his own invention, when yet a boy. And it was by the application of a clever apparatus to one of those machines, whereby "mitts" of a lace-like appearance were produced, that his attention was first turned to mechanical lace making.

"Point net" lace had been extensively wrought by machinery. This was a looped mesh, and therefore slight and frail ; but the attention of very ingenious mechanics had been turned for some years to the question of making a mesh or lace of threads twisted round each other in the formation of the mesh. Hitherto the problem had baffled their endeavours, reducing all who made them to poverty, and driving some into insanity. ' Mr. Heathcoat, after having served his term of apprenticeship, settled in Nottingham, and commenced business on his own account. as a "setter up" of hosiery and warp frames, in the machine shop of Mr. Leonard Elliott, in Broad street.

Elliott was a man of superior mind and skill, and through him young Heathcoat became acquainted with the sanguine ideas then afloat in the proverbially ingenious mind of Nottingham mechanics. Among these was how Buckingham or French lace could be mechanically produced, and to this he gave undivided attention. Elliott described him to have had a thorough practiced knowledge of mechanical powers and contrivances; as inventive, persevering, undaunted by difficulty or mistakes, and consequent temporary want of success; patient, self-denying, and very taciturn, but having surprising confidence that his application of mechanical principles would be crowned eventually with success. His great object was to construct a machine that should do the work of the pillow, the multitude of pins, the threads and bobbins, and the fingers, and to supersede them in the production of lace, as the stocking-loom had superseded the knitting needle.

In 1816 the factory at Loughborough, in which Mr. Heathcoat's business was carried on, was attacked by the Luddites and, the lace frames destroyed. This caused the removal of the manufacture to Tiverton, where it restored the prosperity that had been lost by the decay of the woollen trade. The establishment of Mr. Heathcoat and his partner, Mr. Boden, employs about 2,000 persons. For the benefit of this population schools have been established, a church built, and their welfare promoted in many ways, in addition to the great advantage of profitable employment.

Here we see the memorial to Sir John and his younger son Ludovic who died in France very near to the end of the First World War, or The Great War as it was then called. He died of his wounds in battle in the Somme at Bayonvillers. His death was the result of fighting in what became known as The Hundred Days Offensive.

With the Hundred Days Offensive, the tide finally turned on the Western Front. The period known as the Hundred Days Offensive spanned from 8th August to 11th November 1918. Also known as the Advance to Victory, the Hundred Days Offensive was a series of Allied advances and victories that pushed the Imperial German Army back to the battlefields of 1914. The advance, while gruelling and casualty-heavy, essentially broke the German Army’s will to fight, leading to the Armistice and end of the fighting on the Western Front in November 1918.

Before his death Ludovic had three sons who all died tragically young. Patrick was killed in action in the next Great War, in Libya, while Michael was killed in an air crash, and Edgar was also killed in action in Normandy.

Various Heathcoat Amory's became MP's and Lords including Derick Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Viscount Amory, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer, while the last Heathcoat Amory in parliament was David Heathcoat-Amory who lost his seat by 800 votes in June 2010.

From the time of the very first move of the family to Tiverton they have been closely associated with the area and are famous for their generosity and community spirit.

Evening News (London) - Thursday 12 November 1964

Surprise - a gift FOR the Amorys

(BUT THEY'LL GIVE THIS AWAY TOO)

TEXTILE magnate Sir John Heathcoat Amory and his younger brother Lord Amory, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who have given away more than £100,000 to their home town of Tiverton, Devon, have been on the receiving end for a change.

Their surprise - a long-handled silver spade used by their grandfather, the first Sir John Heathcoat Amory, back in 1880, to start off the Exe Valley North Railway.

Whether the first Sir John mislaid the ornate spade no one knows. It disappeared for 80 years, then turned up in a private museum at Watermouth Castle in North Devon.

Four Tiverton businessmen arranged to buy it and restore it to the Amory family as a gesture of appreciation for all they have done for the town.

But the Amorys have got the giving habit. No sooner had their family spade been recovered than they announced they would present it to Tiverton Museum.

Ironically, the railway which grandad opened has just been closed again by Dr. Beeching-who believes in calling a spade a spade.

Devon and Somerset News - Thursday 04 June 1914

THE LATE SIR JOHN HEATHCOAT AMORY

BART.

FUNERAL AT CHEVITHORNE

SIMPLE BUT IMPRESSIVE OBSEQUIES.

It was the wish of Lady Heatheoat Amory and the members of the family that the funeral of the late greatly esteemed and respected baronet (whose death we regretfully announced in our last issue) should be of as simple a character as possible........

.....This wish was observed, and simplicity was the keynote of the obsequies at Chevithorne churchyard on Saturday afternoon. Nevertheless, quite one thousand persons, representing all grades of society in the district, were present to thus pay their last tribute of respect to the memory of Sir John, who in life was beloved by all, and was never happier than when he was administering in one way or another to the happiness of others.

The ceremony was timed for three o'clock, but people began to assemble in the road outside the churchyard and en route from Knightshayes an hour in advance of that time. Those at Chevithorne meanwhile witnessed the arrival of wreaths in advance of the cortege. The wreaths were conveyed in covered vans and deposited near the grave, which had been opened in the north-west corner of the churchyard, where a considerable piece of ground is railed off for family use on the two inner sides by low pallisading, covered with creeping roses, the other fencing being the ivy-clad boundary walls of the churchyard.

The family burial spot slopes gently to the south, and the overcast sky and becalmed atmosphere of Saturday afternoon seemed to harmonise perfectly with the surroundings and the solemn ceremony about to take place. The grave was moss-lined, relieved with trailers of the white-flowered jessamine, the work of the head gardener at Knightshayes, Mr. A. Johnston.