It is a tall grey tower, in four stages, rising with some considerable impressiveness over an Early English and Perpendicular building that has long been but ill cared for. The interior discloses chancel with nave and north aisle only, the roofs of that waggon-headed type usual in the West of England; the walls daubed with a light blue wash. A fine fifteenth-century carved wooden rood-screen, in a much worn condition, has been shamefully used in the past, the frieze having been filled in with plaster in 1727, according to the date inscribed on the work. The initials, “J. P., T. H.,” probably those of the churchwardens who perpetrated the outrage, prove that, so far from being ashamed of themselves they even took pride in their work. A number of interesting bench-ends remain, among them a delightfully carved little lizard, who, unfortunately, has lost his head. Some queer inscriptions in the churchyard, whose like, now that education penetrates every nook and corner, will no longer be perpetrated, arouse a passing smile: among them this extraordinary effort:-- HERE LYETH IOHAN ASH, SHE DIED IN SEPTEMBER J668 loe here I slepe in dust till christ my deare And Sweet Redeemer in the clouds Appeare HERE LYETH THE BODY OF HnmphTy shE WHO diEd y 19 day OF NOVEmbER 1681. Bacon-Shakespeare fanatics have made cryptograms out of less eccentric lettering than this. In these latter days Combemartin is making a strenuous effort to be regarded as a “literary landmark.” It is all on account of Miss Marie Corelli’s novel, “The Mighty Atom,” and a certain class of visitors sometimes come over from Ilfracombe attracted by vague rumours of it. They are the kind of people who, content to remain below and idly examine the ever-open gates of the rood-screen, supposed on insufficient grounds to be symbolic of the heavenly gates, which “shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there,” say to their younger companions, desirous of climbing the tower: “I’ll stop down ’ere, while you go hup.” The local photographer makes a brave display of picture-postcards of the village and of the sexton who appears in the book as “Reuben Dale,” but the thing seems to hang fire. James Norman was the original of “Reuben Dale,” and the present sexton is alert to show you his grave, whether you be interested or not. Norman died, aged 54, in 1898, and, it seems, the rector refused to allow the pseudonym to be placed on the epitaph, by way of advertising the novelist. You are told he declared that he “buried a man, not a miff” (?myth). Apparently the rector did not approve of “The Mighty Atom.”