Dart and Avon Mission Community

We warmly welcome you to St Paul de Leon Church.

 

In 2014 the church celebrated the 700th anniversary of the edict of Bishop Walter

de Stapledon who ordered that the Norman church be pulled down and a new more

capacious building be erected. (See pictures below taken at the time of the celebration),

He gave the Vicar and parishioners eighteen months to complete the task under the

threat of a heavy fine for failure. We do not know whether they succeeded or not, but

they certainly eventually produced a church of considerable size in relation to the

population. The ecclesiastical parish originally stretched from the River Dart to the

outlying suburbs of Ashburton, until in the 1850s the Parish of Landscove was carved

out of it. The large churchyard is a mass of snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils in the Spring.