Tribute has been paid to former architect and priest at his funeral last week in Lewtrenchard after dying at his home aged 96.

Tony Good was an instantly recognisable figure in Tavistock where he lived in his riverside house after a career as an architect and curate.

He was a well-known figure wearing his navy blue beret or Panama hat walking to the library to pick up audio books right up until his passing..

He never lost his love of reading, history, war and spy stories. Tony died at his own home and was buried at St Peter’s in Lewtrenchard alongside his wife Yvonne. After her death Tony was bereft, but persevered and very active in his retirement taking church services, including St Peter's Lewtrenchard.

Fr Steven Martin, Rector of the Holyford, Colyton, took the funeral service last Tuesday ( October 22) He told the congregation: “Tony loved good food and wine, got great pleasure out of cooking and could still prepare a mean moules in a white wine sauce washed down with white wine. He retained his curiosity until the end. He died exactly as he would’ve wished, after a good lunch, still independent and surrounded by familiar things in his own home. His twin sister Valerie had predeceased him by just three years. Showing good family genes.”

Tony was born in in London, qualifying in architecture, then theology at Wells. He met and married Yvonne, (a hospital social worker) in 1957, while a curate in Maidstone. After the birth of their first child, Sarah, they moved to a parish in Sandhurst where his daughters Alexine and Felicity were born.

He lectured in architecture at Plymouth Polytechnic, living in a disused Methodist Chapel which he planned and renovated as a family home. Tony worked as an architect and helped out as a lay preacher in the Exeter diocese.

A gifted draughtsman and watercolorist, he made wonderfully detailed Christmas cards. Yvonne worked as a medical social worker at Freedom Fields, Plymouth. He enjoyed the mix of church and architecture and family holidays were punctuated with endless stops to see noteworthy churches.