Get to know: St Martin's Church in Exeter

St Martin’s is one of the best-preserved medieval churches in Exeter and also one of the smallest.

Consecrated on 6 July 1065, just one year before the Norman Conquest, it predates the Cathedral in its current form. The dedication was to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Cross, Mary Mother of God, St Martin, and All Saints.

It served the spiritual needs of a tiny but dense parish — just 1.75 acres — which still housed more than 300 residents in 62 homes in the early 19th century.

The church’s history is intertwined with Exeter’s development. It was consecrated by Bishop Leofric, who relocated the Devon and Cornwall cathedral from Crediton to Exeter. As a Burgundian, he may have chosen to dedicate the church to the French Saint Martin of Tours.

The parish kept lively traditions — such as “beating the bounds” on Ascension Day, with the parish boundary walked by a captain in ribbons, and refreshments of beer, rolls, and cheese. They even owned their own fire engine, originally kept beside the church and later moved to the nearby Royal Clarence Hotel.

The church’s irregular footprint and canted chancel reflect the constraints of building within a tight medieval city. Despite the decline of the parish as the city centre became more commercial in the 20th century, St Martin’s retained its distinct character. It was declared redundant in 1995 and entrusted to the Churches Conservation Trust, preserving its remarkable Saxon, medieval, and post-Reformation features.

St Martin’s stands at a corner of Cathedral Close, leaning against Mol’s Coffee House. Its angled placement reflects its earlier construction before the present street grid.

The exterior is roughcast Heavitree sandstone, with later additions of volcanic trap and white Beer stone around the windows. The west window — a fine example of late medieval Beer stonework — is deliberately prominent, asserting the church’s presence despite its small scale.

The north tower, added in the 15th or 16th century, projects like a transept and features a stair turret and iron bands reinforcing its fragile stone.

The tower also houses a single bell, cast in 1675 by Thomas Pennington III of Exeter. The bell bears a satirical medal design showing a king on one side and a pope on the other — an emblem of post-Reformation religious tension.

Inside, the church is light and elegant. Large windows and whitewashed walls create a sense of openness. The plastered waggon roof, typical of Devon, has carved bosses depicting a dove and a pair of human heads.

The font, under the tower, combines two different stones and includes a secondary basin, possibly used for holy oil.

There is some surviving medieval glass — notably in the south nave window, which includes the arms of Bishop Lacy, the See of Exeter, and other local families, alongside a descending dove.

One of the church’s defining qualities is its post-Reformation furnishings, remarkably intact thanks to long periods of disuse and minimal Victorian intervention. These include a painted gallery, box pews, 17th-century altar rails, and a pulpit from around 1804.

The sanctuary retains a painted reredos (reuuhdos), barley-sugar altar rails, and fixed benches along the walls — a rare survival of an early post-Reformation layout.

Among the notable furnishings:

Box pews with doors, typical of the 18th century.

A west gallery painted with angels, the arms of the City of Exeter, Bishop Trelawny, and George III.

A pulpit from c. 1804 and a “finger organ” recorded in 1842.

The Royal Arms of Charles I (1635), hidden during the Civil War and rediscovered later.

What I love about the chancel is that it contains:

A concealed medieval wagon roof.

Barley-sugar altar rails, designed to keep parishioners’ dogs from the altar, following a 17th-century order from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A Vinegar Bible, which belongs to the church and used to be displayed in a glass case, is occasionally brought out on display for open days. It was published by John Baskett in Oxford in 1717. These Bibles are so called from a misprint in the chapter heading to Luke 20, which reads ‘The Parable of the Vinegar’ instead of ‘the Vineyard’. Contemporary commentators described this edition as ‘A Baskett full of errors’.

There is some surviving medieval glass — notably in the south nave window, which includes the arms of Bishop Lacy, the See of Exeter, and other local families, alongside a descending dove.

One of the church’s defining qualities is its post-Reformation furnishings, remarkably intact thanks to long periods of disuse and minimal Victorian intervention. These include a painted gallery, box pews, 17th-century altar rails, and a pulpit from around 1804.

The sanctuary retains a painted reredos (reuuhdos), barley-sugar altar rails, and fixed benches along the walls — a rare survival of an early post-Reformation layout. 

Then on the left you can see an example of one of the exceptional collection of monuments:

Philip Hooper (1715): kneeling at a prayer desk with books and a skull, carved by John Weston, flanked by trumpeting angels.

There is also one to Judeath Wakeman (1643): with grave-digging angels and a witty inscription.

St Martin’s may be small, but it embodies nearly a thousand years of English religious history — from Saxon foundations and medieval glass to post-Reformation furnishings and Georgian monuments.

While there is no evidence of direct Gibbs family involvement here, their support of Gothic Revival and ecclesiastical architecture elsewhere — notably St Michael’s on Mount Dinham, Cowley Chapel, and the Tyntesfield chapel — reflects the same ideals seen in St Martin’s: faith, continuity, and beauty embodied in stone.

Their Anglo-Catholic faith, shaped by the Oxford Movement, revived pre-Reformation traditions and inspired architects to return to medieval Gothic models, influencing churches across the Southwest — and Tyntesfield itself.

If churches matter to you as much as they do to us, please consider supporting the Churches Conservation Trust.

You can donate online at visitchurches.org.uk/donate, or text EXE to 70191 to donate £10. Thank you.