The Church
St Mary's church is built of the local volcanic stone, and has a particularly beautiful tower, with figures of the four evangelists at its corners and that of Christ in Benediction on its West face.
The chancel has some early 14th century work; the West tower and South aisle were probably added about 1400, the North aisle in 1833.
The altar-piece is a painting of the Last Supper by an unknown hand, brought from Italy by one of the Northcotes about 1710. There is an altar-tomb to Humphrey Larder (d. 1588), another with a recumbent effigy of Edmund Larder (d. 1521), and several monuments to the Northcotes of Pynes, later Earls of Iddesleigh.
John Walker, author of The Sufferings of the Clergy, was rector here 1720-47, and is buried on the N. side of the churchyard.
Read more about this topic: Upton Pyne
Famous quotes containing the word church:
““To me it seems a shocking idea. I despise and loathe myself, and yet you thrust self at me from every corner of the church as though I loved and admired it. All religion does nothing but pursue me with self even into the next world.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.”
—Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)