St Brannock's Church, Braunton

St Brannock's Church in Braunton, North Devon, is a church of great antiquity and charm, dedicated to a Celtic saint of the sixth century and rich in legend. A Grade I listed medieval building, described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the most interesting, and also one of the most puzzling, in North Devon", it stands in one of the largest villages in England, near the great sand dunes of Braunton Burrows. With its massive Norman tower, its broad aisleless nave and its carvings telling the curious tales of its founding saint, St Brannock's gathers some fourteen centuries of Devon history into one building.

According to legend, the church was founded by St Brannock, an early Christian saint who is believed to have migrated from South Wales to establish a monastery at Braunton in the sixth century — part of the great movement of Celtic saints who carried Christianity across the western seaways of Britain. Sir John Betjeman recorded the tradition that St Brannoc was "almost certainly" buried beneath the high altar of the church. The present building dates mainly from the thirteenth century, but it stands on the foundations of a Saxon predecessor, and Christian worship on the site may reach back as far as the saint's own time.

The church is famous for the legend of its founding. Local tradition holds that St Brannock first tried to build his church on a hill overlooking Braunton, but that the building collapsed; then, in a dream, the saint was told to look for "a sow and her piglets", and that where he found them he should build his new church. He found the sow on the low ground where the church now stands, and built there. This charming story is commemorated in one of the church's stained-glass windows and in a roof boss carved with a sow feeding her litter — one of the many delightful details that reward the visitor. Another tale of the saint is carved on one of the church's medieval pew ends, which shows St Brannoc with a cow, recalling the legend that, when a neighbour stole and slaughtered his cow, the saint miraculously restored it to life.

The church's architecture is unusual and impressive. Its most striking feature is the massive south tower, apparently Norman, set unusually over the south transept rather than at the west end, and crowned by a lead-covered broach spire similar to that at Barnstaple nearby. The nave, though some thirty-four feet wide, has no aisles — a remarkable and puzzling arrangement — and is covered by a fine roof enriched with fifteenth-century carved bosses. The church preserves a wealth of historic furnishings: an early Norman font, a Jacobean pulpit, and a series of carved wooden pews and chestnut pew ends of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, which are themselves listed for their importance. These accumulated treasures make St Brannock's a church of real interest, layered with the work and the legends of many centuries.

The church suffered a serious setback in July 2003, when it was badly damaged in an arson attack that completely destroyed the gallery housing the sixteenth-century organ pipes and damaged pews and an antique Bible; services were temporarily moved to the nearby Brannock Rooms while the church was restored. The community's anger was such that posters were placed around the village threatening the culprits, who proved to be three young boys. The church was repaired, and continues today as an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Exeter, the historic heart of Braunton.

The church stands in the centre of Braunton, one of the largest villages in England, in North Devon near the town of Barnstaple. The village is surrounded by remarkable landscapes: Braunton Great Field, one of the very few surviving medieval open-field systems in the country, lies on one side, and Braunton Burrows — one of the largest sand-dune systems in England and the core of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve — on the other. The golden beaches of Saunton Sands and Croyde, beloved of surfers, the Tarka Trail, the South West Coast Path, and the wild beauty of Exmoor and the North Devon coast are all within easy reach.

From a monastery founded by the Welsh saint Brannock in the sixth century, through the medieval church built on its Saxon foundations, the legends of the sow and the restored cow carved in its wood and glass, its puzzling Norman tower and broad aisleless nave, to its restoration after the fire of 2003, St Brannock's Church gathers fourteen centuries of Devon history and legend into one building. A Grade I listed church and one of the most interesting in North Devon, it remains the living parish church of Braunton — a treasure of the Celtic and medieval past beside the great dunes of the Devon coast.