Welcome to Alfington church

The Alfington Church community is small but very committed. Our usual Sunday attendance is between eight and ten and we hold two services a month, currently both services of Holy Communion. Each week we gather for Morning prayer on a Tuesday (outside when the weather permits) to pray for our world and creation.

We are a very relaxed and welcoming church, where being perfect definitely takes second place to being genuine. We sing our hymns unaccompanied and everyone helps out in one way or another. The church is very cold most of the year but our friendship is warm!

Find us

Address
Church Lane
Alfington
EX11 1PE

What three words
cabbage.jubilant.depths

Latitude/longitude
50.7749940/-3.2589050

Nearest defibrillator
Next door in church hall

Church accessibility and features

Accessibility

Church buildings are not always the most accessible. Where possible we have made changes to make them more user-friendly but there are some limitations that we are not able to work round.

  • Open daily (the church is never locked)

  • Very limited parking

  • Toilet (during services only)

  • Wheelchair friendly church

  • Churchyard wheelchair friendly but steep

  • No hearing loop

Features

All of our churches are unique and many date back many hundreds of years. Each building tells a story and highlighted below are some of the features that are especially noteworthy.

  • Children's area

  • Wildlife friendly churchyard

  • Pugin designed window

  • 1897 lych gate dedicated to "Victoria the Good"

  • 16thC oak eagle lectern


  • Bishop Patteson memorial plaque and carving

Church history

Alfington Church (a Grade 2 listed building) started life as a Chapel of Ease to Ottery. It was built in 1849 by Sir John Taylor Coleridge and designed by his friend William Butterfield. Butterfield was busy restoring Ottery St Mary church at the time and the family also commissioned a parsonage and school house in Alfington.

A churchyard was added to the church in 1878 and then Alfington became a parish in its own right in 1882. A consecration service to move it from being a Chapel of Ease to a full parish church was held on 29th September 1882 by the then Bishop of Exeter, Frederick Temple.

In 2026 the church reverted to being a Chapel of Ease, coming full circle.

The church is a plain building, always intended to be a temporary one, made of roughly rendered brick with small lancet style windows. It can seat 150 people which must always have been optimistic given the size of the village.

The church has connections far beyond the village however as Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, the first Bishop of Melanesia was curate here. There is a fine memorial to him by Butterfield at the West end of the church as well as a wooden plaque presented by the people of the Solomon Islands to the church depicting the martyrdom of the Bishop.

For a more detailed history please visit the Historic England page.

Image gallery