St Swithun’s sits quietly at the heart of Woodbury, but like so many Devon churches it rewards anyone who steps inside with far more history than its modest setting suggests. Approached from the long descent off Woodbury Common, the church appears at first as a familiar Westcountry silhouette — a sturdy west tower, a long nave, and a scatter of gravestones leaning gently in the grass. Yet the closer you look, the more you realise how many centuries have left their mark here.
The earliest parts of the building date back to the thirteenth century, with fragments of the south transept and sections of the nave wall surviving from that period. Most of what we see today, however, belongs to a major rebuilding in the early fifteenth century, when the west tower was erected between 1407 and 1409. It is a fine example of its type: three stages high, with set-back buttresses, a battlemented parapet, and belfry openings framed by delicate quatrefoils. The tower has a certain self-confidence about it, as though the medieval masons wanted to make a statement visible across the parish.
The north aisle followed in the early sixteenth century, funded by the Haydon family, whose chantry chapel once occupied what is now the vestry and organ chamber. Their contribution gives the north side of the church a distinctly Perpendicular rhythm — six bays of four-light windows under depressed arches, divided by buttresses with neat offsets. The whole elevation is battlemented, giving it a slightly fortified air, as though the church were keeping a quiet watch over the village.
Inside, the building reveals its layers even more clearly. The five-bay north arcade is particularly striking, its piers carved with a late variant of wavy moulding and capitals decorated with heads and foliage. Above the arches sit curious strapwork panels — a decorative flourish that feels almost domestic, as though borrowed from a Tudor manor house. The tower arch is equally impressive, its panelled intrados and separate capitals suggesting a mason who took pride in his craft.
The chancel area is full of interest. The former Haydon chantry chapel is separated from the chancel by a panelled arch designed to accommodate a founder’s tomb, complete with a squint allowing a view of the high altar. Another squint survives near the chancel arch, and no fewer than three piscinas are scattered through the building — a reminder that St Swithun’s once housed several side chapels, perhaps reflecting its medieval ownership by the Vicars Choral of Exeter Cathedral.
The roofs are a pleasing mixture of periods: an early sixteenth-century wagon roof in the north aisle, a handsome hammerbeam roof of 1893 in the nave, and a scissor-braced chancel roof with a gentle ogival curve. Together they create a sense of architectural conversation across the centuries.
Among the furnishings, the fifteenth-century font stands out — an octagonal bowl with quatrefoils on each face and richly traceried coving descending into the stem. The Jacobean pulpit is another highlight, its arcaded panels showing the confident carving of the early seventeenth century. The Elizabethan communion rails, originally arranged on three sides of the altar in Laudian fashion, now partly surround the font, their Corinthian balusters and carved finials adding a touch of elegance.
St Swithun’s also has a particularly rich collection of monuments. The most striking is the early seventeenth-century tomb chest in the sanctuary, with effigies of a man in ceremonial armour and his wife, both wearing ruffs and accompanied by animals at their feet. Tradition links it to Nutwell Court, though its exact origins remain a matter of local debate. The church floor contains sixteen tomb slabs, including one to Sir Henry Pollexfen, Chief Justice of Common Pleas and a key legal figure during the Glorious Revolution. His presence here adds a surprising national dimension to this rural parish.
Other memorials tell quieter stories: elegant eighteenth-century plaques to Mary Heathfield and George Barons; fragments of sixteenth-century stained glass in the transept; and a fine Kempe east window glowing with late-Victorian colour. The royal coat of arms of 1799, presented by Captain Thomas Huckell Lee of the Woodbury Volunteers, adds a further layer of local pride and national history.
And for the visitor arriving on foot from the high ground of Woodbury Common, it offers a welcome descent into history: a place where the centuries sit comfortably together, and where the past feels very much alive in the present.
