Places of Worship

The Cathedral Church of St Peter, Exeter, Devon

Client: The Dean and Chapter of Exeter CathedralThe Cathedral Church of St Peter, Exeter, Devon
Site: Medieval cathedral, mostly 12th and 14th century, the 14th-century work representing the Decorated style English Gothic Cathedral par excellence. The precinct is bounded by a variety of important buildings including clergy houses of medieval origin. The cathedral site has known below-ground remains from c.A.D.55 onwards, including a Roman bath-house of European importance and a Saxon minster. The precinct is used as a public park in central Exeter. The site has overlapping protection by listing, scheduling, conservation area status and the ecclesiastical system of control.
Summary of Project: To provide a Conservation Management Plan for the cathedral and its precinct, summarising the history and significance of the below-ground archaeology, the buildings and their setting. Together with the Dean and Chapter, their professional advisors and the Fabric Advisory Committee, setting out the defining issues of the site and opportunities for and constraints on future change.
Objective: To provide a summary, readable and reliable account of a complicated place to assist the Dean and Chapter in their purposes of worship and mission and their responsibilities towards the buildings and their setting.

The Parish Church of St Mary, Whimple, Devon

Client: The Parochial Church CouncilThe Parish Church of St Mary, Whimple, Devon
Site: A 15th and 16th-century church massively rebuilt and extended in 1845 to the designs of John Hayward, the leading local church architect in the diocese of Exeter at that date. The fittings included 16th-century bench ends; 1845 open seats with carved ends and box pews and late 19th and early 20th-century chancel fittings.
Summary of Project: To understand and assess the significance of the fittings, particularly the nave seating.
Objective: To assist decisions on the re-ordering of the church by identifying the relative importance of the fittings and where changes to the interior might take place.

St James Priory Project, Bristol

Client: The St James Priory ProjectSt James Priory Project, Bristol
Site: Surviving nave and part of the crossing of a mid 12th century Benedictine Priory church listed Grade I and of European significance with later alterations. The site also included part of a superior 17th-century merchant’s house, listed Grade II*, later buildings and open spaces. The buildings are used as an addiction treatment centre for chemically-dependent homeless people.
Summary of Project: A Conservation Management Plan developed as one of a family of documents, including a feasibility study and condition survey, all commissioned in connection with a Heritage Lottery Fund bid for repairs and redevelopment.
Objectives: Conservation management guidance designed to underpin and guide the proposals and the future conservation of the buildings. Successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid. Scaffolding for the repairs presented an opportunity for Keystone to record, analyse and draft an article (publication pending) on the important medieval roof of the nave which has been tree-ring dated.