Churches of the British Isles

The church features a stained glass window by Morris & Co, attractive plaster column capitals depicting various forms of flora and fauna, and a well-maintained three-manual organ. It is a cruciform building of squared and coursed limestone in the Decorated style, with banded slate and brown clay tiled roofs, consisting of a chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, south porch, and an embattled south tower, which contains a clock and a ring of eight bells, the last being added in 1893.

Withycombe Methodist Church is at the south-western corner of Withycombe Village Road and a southwards lane of the same name which leads to Withycombe Brook. Exmouth's first Wesleyan Methodists arrived in 1808, meeting in houses and shops around town. Then they gained the Parade (see links) in 1843, Christchurch in 1859, and Tower Street Church. The Withycombe church opened in 1907 to replace Withycombe (Old) Methodist Chapel (below).

Withycombe Reading Room is on the northern side of Withycombe Village Road, about fifty metres east of Burnside junction. It is marked on the OS 25-inch map of 1892-1914 as such, and the present building may well be the same one in some respects, but satellite imagery shows a rearwards extension which was not previously there. This is next to the Holly Tree public house and Popplestone Alley which housed the earliest local cottage meeting of Wesleyan Methodists.

St Michael & All Angels Church formerly stood at the north-eastern corner of Withycombe Village Road and School Lane (formerly Chapel Close Lane). Today a school is located across the site. The green space between the school buildings and the road was formerly the graveyard. In 1865 the larger church building of St John the Evangelist was opened to better serve the village, and this smaller, older church, now excess to requirements, was closed and soon demolished.

The lost Withycombe (Old) Methodist Chapel was located on the northern side of Withycombe Village Road, about fifty metres to the west of a public footpath alongside the Country House Inn which leads to Moorfield Close. The chapel is shown on the OS 25-inch map of 1892-1914. Methodists expanding from Exmouth erected this chapel in 1884 as their first formal site in Withycombe. It quickly became too small and was replaced by the present church (above).

All photos on this page by P L Kessler.