PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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St Budeaux did not become a parish until May
20th 1482, when the Bishop of Exeter set his seal to the Ordinance granting the wishes of
Mr John Ernesettle and 23 of the local people that St Budeaux should become a separate
parish. The parishioners were to build the chaplain a house thirty feet by sixteen
and these measurements are said to have fitted the remains of a property that existed by
the side of the old manor house at Ernesettle. A plot of land was also to be
consecrated as a cemetery. Bishop Courtenay also laid down that the church should
pay four pence a year to the Prior at Plympton and a further forty shillings a year to the
vicar of St Andrew’s, one John Stubbs, to compensate
him for the income lost by the removal of burials. The original church was probably very small although it is known to have had a tower containing three bells in 1553 when a Commission appointed by King Edward VI carried out an inventory of church plate, etc. A new church was soon required and it was decided to build it in a healthier position, away from the Tamar river. In 1563 the new church, the present one, was completed, probably at the expense of the Lord of the Manor, Roger Budockshead of Budockshead. It is known that he gave a piece of land to the churchwardens and 24 of the parishioners and generously gave them a further parcel of land to the north-east of the Church upon which “honest games” could be played, except during Divine Service, of course. The gift was on condition that the parishioners paid him one penny each year between one o’clock and three o’clock in the afternoon on Christmas Day, at the south door of the Church. Incidentally, the gift was for two thousand years making the total cost over that lengthy period just £8. A real bargain! Architecturally, the Church has little to commend it.
It is the only Tudor period church in the City and was constructed, so tradition says,
using material from the original church. It is built in the Perpendicular
style. The nave and side aisles are of equal length and are separated on each side
by three arches resting on granite pillars. There is no chancel, the Communion
Table being raised on two steps at the east end of the nave. This is because the
altar table was not regarded with any special sanctity when the Church was built, being as
it was so close to the Reformation of the Church of England. There is an embattled tower at the western end. When the Church was built the three bells from the old building were hung in the tower. A fourth bell was added in 1637. Minor repair work was carried out in 1640, 1659 and 1663. The third bell, the present number 5, was recast in 1699 by Mordecai Cockey of Totnes. The tenor bell was recast by Mr Thomas Bilbie in 1749 and the treble and second bells, the present numbers 3 and 4, were recast in 1780 by Mr John Pennington. Two more bells were added in 1888 by Messrs Mears and Stainbank, who overhauled the others while they were at it. In 1931 the fifth and sixth bells were recast by Messrs John Taylor & Company and the whole peel were rehung in a new cast-iron frame. In the north-east corner there used to be a doorway for the private use of the Lord of the Manor but this was blocked up some time ago. There are monuments to the Budocksheds, Gorges, Trevilles, Fownes, Chard, Fortescues and Stucleys, one of them restored at the expense of the Historical Society and citizens of the State of Maine, USA and some of the Gorges family in England in memory of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who in 1596 became the first Governor of Plymouth Fort, and later became the first proprietor and governor of the province of Maine. The church was restored in 1876 by Mr James Hine of Plymouth and again in 1934. The records include the marriage of Francis Drake and Mary Newman on July 4th 1569 and the burial of Mary Drake, wife of Sir Francis Drake, Knight, in 1583. During the Civil War the church was used as a Royalist garrison. On April 16th 1644 six hundred of Cromwell's musketeers under Lieutenant Colonel Martin marched out of Plymouth, surprised the garrison and captured two officers, forty-four other ranks, twenty horses and three barrels of powder as well as over a hundred weapons. Later in the same year, on December 27th, after the Royalists had erected a battery on the south side of the Church, there was once again a lengthy battle and once again the Roundheads captured the Church and took twenty-one officers and 100 men prisoner. Ten of the defenders and seven of the attackers were killed. The Church was wrecked and not restored until 1655. There were no entries in the parish registers over much of this period and it is said that the parson had fled. The parish records are held at the Plymouth & West Devon Records Office in Clare Place, Sutton Road, Plymouth. In 1843 a chapel-of-ease, Trinity Chapel, was erected at what was then Knacker's Knowle, the modern Crownhill, which was at the far eastern reaches of the parish of St Budeaux.
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