page_title: Nutwell
section_title: Nutwell Chapel
hierarchical_section_title: Nutwell / Nutwell Chapel
caption_attribution_description: English: Nutwell Chapel, Woodbury, Devon. Watercolour by Rev. John Swete (d.1821) made before this 14th century chapel was incorporated into the present neo-classical Nutwell Court.
context_page_description: Nutwell in the parish of Woodbury on the south coast of Devon is a historic manor and the site of a Georgian neo-classical Grade II* listed mansion house known as Nutwell Court. The house is situated on the east bank of the estuary of the River Exe, on low-lying ground nearly contiguous to the water, and almost facing Powderham Castle similarly sited on the west bank. The manor was long held by the powerful Dynham family, which also held adjacent Lympstone, and was according to Risdon the site of their castle until John Dynham, 1st Baron Dynham, the last in the male line, converted it into "a fair and stately dwelling house".
context_section_description: In 1371 a licence for a chapel at Nutwell was obtained from the Bishop of Exeter by John Dynham (1318–1383). It was converted into a library by Sir Francis Drake, 5th Baronet (1723-1794) which involved "cutting through the timbered roof...to make a plaster ceiling". Polwhele considered that this was one of his "improvement" which resulted in the creation of a "handsome library", but to Swete it was "an unwarrantable desecration". The chapel survives attached to the present neo-classical building, in a position slightly recessed from the south front and extending eastward. It has undergone considerable restorations. The south side contains four bays, the most westerly being for a first floor arched entrance door reached via an external staircase. The crypt underneath has square headed windows whilst the walls of the chapel above were given in the 19th century three gothic style pointed windows. The parapet above is crenellated and on the merlons survive weathered sculpted reliefs of the Dinham arms. Swete's watercolour of the east end shows the surviving arrangement of crocketed finials projecting outward on corbels over the string course with canopied niches containing much weathered statues of St George and the Archangel Michael. The north wall is topped for only part of its length with a crenellated parapet. Fragments of 14th-century stained glass, showing three figures, survive in the present chapel anteroom.
caption: The 14th-century Nutwell Chapel. Watercolour of east window by Rev. John Swete (d.1821) made before 1799 when it was incorporated into the present neo-classical Nutwell Court
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