These three windows, depicting rural scenes, have been much admired but are of no great antiquity.
By 1885, the old windows previously there were in a serious state of decay and were rebuilt in Beer stone, then glazed, according to an account of the time, with tinted cathedral glass. Years later, in 1914, a Mr Wadham Knatchbull, who lived at Harepath, near Colyford, and regularly worshipped at Axmouth Church, died. He is commemorated by a brass plaque mounted on the tower wall of the nave, its sad condition possibly indicative of the difficulty in obtaining materials of quality during the war years.
Mr Knatchbull’s widow commissioned new designs from a glass company, Messrs James Bell & Son of College Green, Bristol, and some of the paperwork for one of these, the easternmost of the three, survives and bears the date April 1922. The name of the maker may still be seen at the corner of the actual window light, and also on the third one, doubtless installed at about the same time.
The central window bears no name and is believed to be a little older but may well have been given by the same donor. The glass company of Messrs Bell moved to another Bristol address in 1933 and traded from there for over sixty more years but is now defunct.