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After a week of relentless rain, capped by a downpour of almost biblical proportions, we were determined not to be deterred. The forecast for the weekend was hardly encouraging, yet Saturday promised a brief window of dry skies — enough to tempt Rupert and me eastwards to Devon. Our destination was St Andrew’s in Colyton, a church we had heard much about but never seen. The ninety‑minute drive proved more than worthwhile, for not only were we rewarded with a remarkable building, but we also found ourselves swept into the festive spirit by the way this small town embraced December with such gusto.
We parked in a lovely spot overlooking the Coly Valley and the Axe Valley and out towards Musbury Castle (which is actually an Iron Age hill fort despite its name suggesting otherwise) and towards Boshill Hill – such a big hill they had to name it twice! To our south would be Seaton but we couldn’t see that, though we could glimpse the Dowlands Cliffs from the car park. In front of us should have been the Seaton and District Electric Tramway running up and down the valley, but I’m not sure if all the rain had put a stop to their services – they should at least have been running a Christmas‑only service but we didn’t see sight nor sound of it all day – perhaps the wet weather had taken its toll on this tourist line. Indeed, with it being early December there was a distinctly out‑of‑season feel to the valley – even more so with the substantial pools of water in the fields below us thanks to all the recent rain. The ground really was saturated… we weren’t optimistic about leaving asphalt and pavements, but more of that later.
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We waited in the car park for the last of the major rain clouds to blow through and then headed into Colyton itself, heading down the road northwards towards the town centre. Few towns can have quite as much variety in the housing as Colyton – almost no two houses looked the same, with some centuries‑old cottages next to new builds, thatched roofs rivalling more modern slate. Not a few houses had peculiarly curved walls. It was all very quaint and idiosyncratic. Perhaps its moniker as ‘The most rebellious town in Devon’ conveyed itself through its architecture as much as through its history.
Now why is it called the ‘most rebellious town in Devon’? This is to do with the Monmouth Rebellion when the Duke of Monmouth landed in nearby Lyme Regis in June 1685. No town volunteered as large a proportion of its population as Colyton did. Most other communities shirked away when they contemplated the consequences of their treason, but not Colyton, and indeed sadly Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes did take savage reprisals in this part of the country in consequence of the defeat of the rebels at Westonzoyland.
That Protestant heritage definitely ran deep, as there was an intriguing fountain in the town centre that was built to commemorate the wedding of Queen Victoria’s son HRH The Prince of Wales in 1863, which was funded “by the Patriotic Protestants of Colyton as a permanent memorial of that national Triumph and in vindication of their own loyalty!” In the era before piped water, fountains were a very popular way of serving the local community and this dedication must have been seen by thousands of inhabitants over the years before their need to gather fresh water from a pump in the centre declined.
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Even in church architecture Colyton seems to have found a way to be rebellious. St Andrew’s church does not have a traditional tower nor a spire. No, it has to do its own thing and have a 14th‑century octagonal lantern tower, making it look so different from any other church in the country. There are a couple of other lantern tower churches in England and the rest of Europe, but even in the Venn diagram of lantern churches, St Andrew’s manages to be different by not having massive buttresses holding it up – just four on the corners to gently hold it in place. It is quite unique. The story goes that it was designed with the dual purpose of calling people to prayer but also to provide a navigation point for boats going up and down the River Axe (before farmland reclaimed its navigable nature to ships). But again it is really tucked away and would seem superfluous with heights above it. More likely, the wool merchants that helped make Devon in general and Colyton in particular rich and successful economically would have been familiar with the famous Bruges Town Hall where so much of the weaving of Devon wool would have taken place. It would have cemented business relationships and made purchasers from Bruges feel at home and see the connection between the producers of the raw material and the manufacturers of the finished cloth.
Another claim to fame for being different is the enormous stained‑glass window on the west side of the church. This is certainly the biggest stained‑glass window you will see in Devon outside of Exeter Cathedral and indeed it is one of the largest parish stained‑glass windows of any church in the country. It is beautiful and shows Christ in Majesty surrounded by angels.
There are so many beautiful stained‑glass windows in this church but one on the western side next to the huge stained‑glass window particularly took my attention. There were four different roundels saying ‘Send Me’, ‘Africa’, ‘Colyton’ and ‘Here Am I’. I did actually enquire about this one to various members of staff and volunteers and nobody quite knew what it referred to. I am pretty sure that it might well have something to do with missionary activity being funded from the church, almost certainly in the Victorian era. Organisations like the Church Missionary Society would have raised funds to pay for missionary activity and one has to say that in the case of Africa, they were peculiarly successful in spreading the word of the Gospel. I would like to know the specifics of why this window was installed, but it is very likely to be another connection to the global evangelisation of our predecessors.
The Victorian pulpit is unusually decorative for a Protestant church and looks like it would be more at home in a Catholic church than a Protestant one and perhaps, alongside the gorgeous chandeliers, hints at it being at the forefront of the Victorian Anglo‑Catholic Oxford Movement? I should point out that there are a lot of Christmas trees in the pictures and this is because we arrived on the day of a Christmas Tree Festival in the church where there were dozens of trees all decorated and being shown off. Christmas music also played over the speakers and we felt positively festive in this beautiful venue.
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There was a fascinating memorial to Captain Henry Wilson who commanded the East India Company’s packet ship The Antelope. What made it so interesting is that it says he was wrecked on the Pelew Islands in August 1783 and was wonderfully preserved with the ship’s company amongst “Strangers in a Land unfrequented and unknown.” He was obviously very thankful for the intervention of God to save him and his crew, as the memorial makes clear!
Then there is a monument to the late Mrs Elizabeth Bours of Newport, Rhode Island in North America who was ‘Eminent for her Goodness and Misfortunes’ in 1806, which definitely gets you scratching your head and wondering what those misfortunes were and why she is commemorated here in East Devon.
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But perhaps the most intriguing memorial of all was to Captain Liddon of the Royal Navy, who it says was present in the Naval Brigade at the Siege of Montevideo and served with distinction in the Spanish, French and American Wars! But even more fascinating was that he was Lieutenant Commander of HMS Griper and accompanied Sir Edward Parry on HMS Hecla on his second Arctic voyage of discovery in 1819 – keen to find the elusive North West Passage! They got stuck in the ice and had to spend almost an entire year waiting for it to thaw enough to escape. Amazingly, thanks to Parry’s and Liddon’s leadership the crew suffered remarkably few casualties considering the privations and extreme temperatures they had to endure for so long. This really was a landmark voyage in the history of Arctic exploration and inspired later expeditions, notably Franklin’s not‑so‑successful one over two decades later.
Another surprising thing to see in the church is a Saxon cross hailing from the era of King Alfred. It was actually used by the Normans to help build the church and disappeared from history for 700 years until a fire in 1933 caused extensive damage to the tower and this cross was discovered as part of the renovation of the church. It is the oldest thing in the church and beautiful with it.
There is a tomb thought to be that of Margaret Beaufort – not that Margaret Beaufort we mentioned in our walk around Sampford Peverell the other week, the mother of King Henry VII – but actually she is a relation, an aunt of that more famous Margaret Beaufort. This particular Margaret was part of the famous Courtenay family, the Earls of Devon, she was the wife of Thomas Courtenay who eventually prevailed over Lord Bonville of nearby Shute Barton. Margaret was the granddaughter of John of Gaunt.
But even her impressive tomb is blown away by the size and grandeur of the Pole Chapel, stuffed full of sumptuous Renaissance‑era monuments to the famous Poles of Shute. The family later married into the Carews of Cornwall and the family seat moved to Antony House in Cornwall, but they still have a connection to Colyton to this day.
There is so much to see in this church and I really have just scratched the surface. It is one of those churches that is both beautiful inside and out and this one seems more packed with history than most – which is no mean feat given the history and heritage in most of our churches.
Now from here we had intended to walk down alongside the River Coly to Colyford and perhaps on to Seaton. We even managed to walk through a field of cows and bulls on our mission when the ground along the river just got wetter and wetter. It was totally saturated even. I had my boots on and so was unperturbed by the moist soil (Rupert less so perhaps), but soon some of the gateways were just thigh‑deep mud – no fun at all to try and deal with. Reluctantly we turned around and headed back towards the town and looked around there some more instead. As I said it was full of character and we searched out the graveyard for some more history to savour. As the sun began to go down it was lovely to see all the Christmas lights and decorations in the town and through various shop and home windows. It really was a lovely day despite having to stick to pavements rather than footpaths. It really did put us in the festive mood despite not going where we wanted to go. But we will definitely be back in warmer weather to walk and explore the area further.
Colyton may wear its rebellious reputation lightly today, but a visit to St Andrew’s and the town itself shows how deeply history, character, and community spirit are woven into its fabric. From lantern towers and stained glass to Arctic explorers and Saxon crosses, every corner seems to tell a story. Even when the paths are too muddy to follow, the welcome of the town and its festive cheer make the journey worthwhile.
And perhaps that spirit of defiance still lingers. As recently as 2018, when a resident’s laundry sparked complaints, Colyton responded not with embarrassment but with humour — creating a “Raising of the Pants Festival” to celebrate solidarity with the rebel clothes‑line. It is a fitting reminder that in Colyton, rebellion is less about confrontation than about community pride, resilience, and a refusal to be told how to live. So whatever the weather and whatever the season there is so much to see and do in this East Devon town.
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