Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26682915

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)