Church of St Michael the Archangel (Parish Church of East Teignmouth)

Details

TEIGNMOUTH

SX9473 DEN PROMENADE 25-1/5/138 (West side) 30/06/49 Church of St Michael the Archangel (Parish Church of East Teignmouth)

GV II

Parish church. 1821, by Andrew Patey in Norman style (dedicated 1823). Vestry 1885, west tower 1887-9 by RM Fulford in Early English style; chancel 1875 by FC Deshon; fenestration elsewhere is all late C19; South Lady Chapel 1923 by Sir Charles Nicholson; all on ancient foundations. MATERIALS: rock-faced squared grey Plymouth stone with cream limestone dressings and some red sandstone to the facade and rear, brown rock-faced stone to the returns. Concrete tile roof. PLAN: 5-bay cruciform with various additions. EXTERIOR: the west porch is in a tower of 5 stages. The lower courses are of red sandstone, the moulded plinth is approx 2m high. The pointed-arched entrance is flanked by buttresses with crocketed gables and finials. The deep intrados is panelled red and cream, the Norman-style tympanum carved with a figure of St Michael overcoming the devil. To the left-hand corner is an octagonal stair turret with loop-holes to the front of each stage. Above the porch a freestone parapet of 5 pierced quatrefoil panels spans the 2nd stage. A circular window above it is set under a pointed-arched hoodmould and red sandstone voussoirs. The 3rd stage, blank to the front, has trefoil-headed lancet windows with red sandstone voussoirs to the returns. The 4th, shallow, stage has a clock. The 5th stage has a tall louvred belfry of paired 2-light openings each under a crocketed gable. The tall castellated parapet of pierced panels has octagonal towers in 3 stages to each corner with spirelets crocketed to the angles. The spirelet of the stair turret is slightly larger. Flanking the tower, to the front of the aisles, are canted flat-roofed single-storey ranges, that to the left with an arched entrance. The set-back west ends of the aisles are rock-faced Plymouth stone with moulded coping and fretted stone crosses to the gables, loop-holes to the apexes, paired 2-light windows with red voussoirs over hoodmoulds and a moulded string course at impost level. The north side, of brown stone, has a shaped fascia articulated by headmasks to the eaves, and hoodmoulds to large semicircular-arched windows with circular lights to the tops. The gabled north transept to the centre is flanked by slender

cylindrical towers with headmasks to the conical tops, a device reflecting the style of the former Saxo-Norman building. The east end with 3 gables has a hopperhead dated 1927 when the Lady Chapel to the south-east corner was added. The outer gables have 3-light pointed-arched windows flanking a large plain pointed-arched cream limestone panel with grey voussoirs and 5 lancet windows set wide apart with a trefoil to the apex. The south side has similar windows and transept to the north side except for a large central semicircular window with circular lights over a large restored Norman arch with dogtooth, chevron and cable mouldings supported by 2 responds with vertical and horizonal chevron moulding, possibly from the former church. Double planked doors. INTERIOR: the aisles are the same height as the nave, all with plastered barrel-vaulted roofs; the moulded arcade is of segmental arches supported by slender octagonal columns approx 10m high. They are of cast-iron clad in brick with cushion capitals. Aisles and nave are shallow barrel-vaulted with diagonal ribs and circular openings to the crossings. The chancel has a late C19 polychromatic tile floor, a painted roof and rich cornice with 2 cylindrical ornamental tiebeams. FITTINGS: include 1887 marble font by Fulford, 1875 reredos by Deshon, painted wooden panel dated 1700 bearing the arms of William III presented to the church after the sacking by the French in 1690 and a fine organ with ornamented pipes by Hawkins of Newton Abbot, much restored and moved to the north-east corner. Late C19 pine pews and pulpit. Roodscreen installed in 1924. Late C19 stained glass by the Drake family. HISTORICAL NOTE: according to a charter of 1044 in Exeter Cathedral library, Edward the Confessor gave to his chaplain Leofric, the land in the Manor of Dawlish which was described as being bound on one side "by the salterns in the street on the west side of St Michael's Church". Leofric became Bishop of Exeter in 1050. Patey's neo-Norman design is an early and unusual example of a style which was to be most fashionable in the 1840s. (History of St Michael's Church; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Cherry B: Devon: London: 1989-: 796).



Listing NGR: SX9438073036

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

461114

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
History of St Michaels Church Teignmouth, ()
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 796

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