Churches of the British Isles

Scott Drive Evangelical Church is at the outer north-east corner of Scott Drive, overlooking open ground and the southern end of Parrys Farm Close to its north edge. Around 1900 that land to its north was part of Hulham House. Between the 1950s-1970s the present estate was laid down, and this church is shown on contemporary OS maps. It belongs to the FIEC association, which works with various gospel-centred churches in the 'Peninsula Gospel Partnership'.

The Lawn Catholic Meeting is now The Park hotel, at the south-east corner of Exeter Road and Withycombe Road to the north of central Exmouth. The area's first regular modern Catholic mass was held here, on 30 October 1887, when Father Grainger arrived to start a mission. A corrugated iron church was erected in Windsor Square in 1891, dedicated to St John the Evangelist (see links). In 1912 a permanent church was built and The Lawn was no longer required.

All Saints Church fills the north-western corner of the junction between Exeter Road and Church Road in Exmouth. This impressive and well-maintained limestone edifice is the Withycombe parish church for northern Exmouth. Chiefly built in the Decorated style, it has Bath stone dressings and consists of a chancel with south chapel, a four bay nave, a baptistery, aisles, transepts, north and south porches, vestries, and an organ chamber, and can seat seven hundred.

Construction began in 1898 according to the official story, although Kelly's Directory of Devon (1902) says 1897. It took another decade to reach completion and the church was consecrated in 1908, suggesting a funding problem, although initial funding was supplied by an anonymous donor. There is a Lady Chapel in the south transept and a St Christopher Altar in the north. The pipe organ was installed in 1901, and modified and electrified in 1971 and 1989.

North Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was on the north side of North Street (formerly Windsor Square), about thirty metres east of the junction with Clarence Road in Exmouth. It was built in the 1840s, but the Methodists quickly outgrew it before moving to the new Tower Street Chapel (see links). A Free Church meeting in The Savoy Cinema in the Strand purchased it as Christ Church Free Church, one of the earliest of their churches. They remain to this day.

All photos on this page by P L Kessler & M Kessler.