St John the Baptist
Chancel Screen – Photograph (PWDRO 244/4 & 244/5); after 1906 and 1911
This richly carved screen, very much in the traditional style, runs across the nave and north aisle. The nave section is dedicated to Mary Olivia Jenkins (d. 1906), identified by the guide (Instow, undated) as the wife of the Revd W. T. L. Jenkins, Rector. The north portion was added later and commemorates Chamberlain Henry Hinchcliff (died 1891) and his wife Matilda (died 1911) and was the gift of their daughters. Plans for the screen by E. Sedding exist at DHC (1626B/P/35-41), as well as a faculty for the north section dated 1911 (PWDRO 2423/4). The plans show several different versions of the screen before one was agreed.
Choir Stalls – Newspaper article (Western Morning News, 1914) Sedding & Wheatly architects; 1914
These choir stalls are not represented in the photographs at PWDRO, but their dedication is recorded in a newspaper report. This states that some ‘very finely-carved oak stalls’ with ‘bold poppy-heads, all varied in pattern’ were ‘an immense improvement to the church’ (Ibid. p. 8).
Sources
DHC 1626B/P/35-41 Plans. Instow. Screen.
Instow (undated) St John Baptist Instow. Historical Guide.
PWDRO 244/4 Photograph Album. Various. Woodcarvings.
PWDRO 244/5 Photograph Album. Various. Woodcarvings.
PWDRO 2423/4 Catalogue. Devon and Cornwall Faculty Petitions held at Devon Record Office A-I.
Western Morning News (1914) Instow Church New Choir Stalls. 16 April p. 8.