Cockington Church
The Parish Church of St. George and St. Mary (grade II*) is sited immediately to the south of the Court on a small hill.
Built of red sandstone the church’s nave is flanked by two aisles of almost equal height and length and is entered through the low west tower.
Whilst a chapel has existed here since Saxon times (c1069), the earliest documented date for the church is 1113-15. The earliest fabric, like that of the Court itself, has been subsumed into the later work; the interior is 13th and 14th century in the main, with a much restored 14th century screen.
In 1490 Sir Robert Cary, having returned from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela remodelled the church and installed the 15th/16th century font. The fine carved misericords and bench-ends may date from this time.
The remarkable pulpit was originally in the parish church of St Saviour, Torre; it exhibits a developed renaissance iconography, wholly replacing a medieval one.
There have been two major restorations in 1882-83, and in 1916-20 by Sir Charles Nicholson and Herbert Read. In 1943, the stained glass windows were damaged by two German bombs which fell nearby (a crater can still be seen to the south of the church).
The church has burial registers but no grave yard. Three headstones mark the graves of the gamekeeper's dogs, buried under the large beech tree near the church tower.
