Fact and legend are intertwined in the history of Staverton Church. It is said that in Saxon times, after St Paul de Leon landed at Penzance and built his church at St Pol, he sailed along the coast of Devon and Cornwall and then up the River Dart, until he reached the ford at Staverton. He felt that God had guided him to this place, and desired him to build a church. The site he chose was possibly near Wolston Green, and he gathered all the materials together ready to begin building. However, when he awoke the next morning the materials had disappeared. Patiently, he repeated his preparations but by the next morning the materials had again disappeared. When this happened for the third time, St Paul concluded that God was displeased with the site. He therefore chose the present location, which appears to have met with Divine approval, for a place of worship has remained there throughout the intervening ten centuries.
The church built by St Paul was the first of three churches on the site, and would have been a wattle, clay and wooden structure with a thatched roof. The second building was of stone, built in Norman style, and it was much smaller than the present one, the knave being only 16ft 12ft.
A fascinating anecdote is that the timbers from the roof of this Norman church have since been discovered as supporting timbers in the roof of a local farmhouse. It appears that the benefits of recycling are not after all, a discovery of the 20th Century!
It would seem however, that the parishioners did not look after their church too well, as in 1314 Bishop Stapeldon, on a visit to the parish noted several defects and ordered a new church to be built by the people of Staverton. The present building dates from that time, and tradition has it that the villages built such a large church to spite the censorious Bishop. The yew tree survived the rebuilding , and is now over a thousand years old.
A report dated around 1750 quotes the story that a family vault belonging to the Worths was opened in the order to drain it. An oak coffin was found, which must have been that of Simon Worth who died in 1669. When the workmen opened the coffin they found the body not only intact, but quite supple, as if buried only the day before. The body had not been embalmed and although the coffin was left open for several weeks the body did not decay. A surgeon opened the body and found all the organs intact. The vault filled with water in the winter, but dried in the summer, this coffin was held down with a stone.
In 1877, Staverton Church was "restored", in true Victorian style by Sabine Barring Gould, who had a living near London at the time, was contacted as his ancestors were about to be entombed in concrete . He rushed down and removed their memorials to Lewtrenchard Church. The Gould family had lived at Pridhamsleigh (presumably until they lost it in the gambling debt), and Coombe, and were the founders of several Parish Charities. Their name survives today in Goulds, a house near Staverton Station.