Revd. G.D. Melhuish - Notes on the History of Ashwater Parish and Church

Building Material of the Church.

The chief part of the Building is of the Local Freestone, the Plutonic Rock found in many places from Hatherleigh on the East to Tinacre in Clawton on the West. There are quarries in Cookworthy Moor and Muckworthy. Tradition says that stone for the Church was brought along an old disused lane on Hay Farm, which leads in the direction of Muckworthy. This Local Freestone has been known and used for years in the district and most of the oldest Church work was done with it, except when you get nearer the sea where you find sometimes Fonts, Pillars, &c., made of a vein of stone from the cliffs that could be worked with mallet and chisel.

Polyphant stone from Polyphant Quarry, in Lewannick parish, which has been worked for centuries, does not appear to any great extent at present in Ashwater Church. Most of the Churches in the neighbourhood have, or have had, Polyphant for some part of their carved work. It is soft and easily cut but does not stand the weather as a rule, so sometimes odd bits of this beautiful bluegreen stone, which once formed parts of window tracery or mullions, are found lying about in churchyards or neighbouring gardens e.g., a window-head now lies for a gate to swing on at the Rectory. Mr. J. Northcott tells me that some years ago it came from the window near the font and which in Mr. Feild’s time was renewed with Freestone. One layer of this stone is in a pillar in our Church, probably put in when it was rebuilt in the 17th century. Very likely it is an old bit of window work.

Granite :— no granite was used in this neighbourhood till the 15th century. Our granite pillars, &c., are of a rather coarse stone which makes one think they came from Dartmoor. Cornish granite is usually finer in its grain.

The Font is a puzzle. It is rather like Polyphant but seems too hard, perhaps it is from a particularly hard vein of that stone (that is Mr. F. Clifton’s suggestion). The Carminow monument seems to be of Beer Stone from the very ancient quarries at Beer near Seaton, but one cannot be sure.

The head of the window behind the Choir Stalls on the North side and a few other stones are of a peculiar sort, I don’t know what; they are quite different to the touch from the usual Freestone.

In late restoration the common non-free stone of the country has been used.