Description

TORQUAY

SX9263 MEADFOOT ROAD
885-1/18/160 (North side)
10/01/75 Breakaway Sports Centre
(Formerly Listed as:
TORWOOD GARDENS ROAD
Church of the Holy Trinity)

GV II

Parish church, redundant and now in use as sports centre. 1894
by Watson and Watson on the site of an earlier chapel. Snecked
local grey limestone rubble with sandstone dressings; slate
roof, ornamental ridge tiles. Late example of Early
English/Decorated Revival.
PLAN: Nave; apsidal chancel; north and south aisles; north and
south transepts; north porch into transept; chapel and vestry
off chancel; north west tower. The conversion has involved
walling off the aisles and inserting a floor in the nave with
steps up from the former chancel.
EXTERIOR: 3-sided apse with 2-light Decorated traceried
windows. Transept windows 4-light and transomed, transepts
with angle buttresses. Porch on west wall of north transept
with a moulded 2-centred doorway with nook shafts. 5-bay
aisles have lean-to roofs; bays divided by buttresses with
set-offs; clerestory bays divided by pilasters. Triple lancets
to aisles; lancets to clerestory. 3-light Decorated traceried
window in west end of south aisle. 7-light west window with
Geometric Decorated tracery. 3-stage tower with angle
buttresses and a 3-sided stair turret on the east side; tall
stone spire supported by flying buttresses.
Tower has a richly moulded 2-centred arched west doorway and
pairs of large lancets to the other faces. Frieze of blind
trefoil-headed arcading to bottom stage. Belfry stage has big
paired louvred lancet openings and Y tracery. Trefoil-headed
arcade forms parapet. Octagonal corner pinnacles to angle and
flying buttresses have blind trefoil-headed arcade and conical
spire. 2-light lucarnes with Y tracery to 4 sides of spire.
INTERIOR: 5-bay aisles have octagonal piers with stiff-leaf
carved capitals. Nave open roof survives in first-floor
gymnasium: arched braced on stiff-leaf carved corbels. Chancel
polychromy, including stencilled wall decoration and the
painted roof survives from the level of the springing of the
window arches. Good stained glass intact: 3 east windows by
Drake; excellent west window of 1907 designed by Maurice Drake
and executed by Drake and Son (Devon Nineteenth-Century
Churches Project).
A very late example of Early English revival. The spire is an
important element in the townscape.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1952-1989:
P.848; Brooks C: Devon Nineteenth Century Churches Project
Archive).

Listing NGR: SX9215863451

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26502003

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover