The Anglican Church of St Michael (sometimes known as St Michael and All Angels) in

Princetown Princetown is a villageDespite its name, Princetown is not classed as a town today – it is not included in the County Council's list of the 29 towns in Devon: located within Dartmoor national park in the English county of Devon. It is the ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

, England was built between 1810 and 1814. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, and is a

redundant church A redundant church, now referred to as a "closed church", is a church building that is no longer used for Christian worship. The term most frequently refers to former Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, but may also be used for disused church ...

in the care of the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. The

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

church stands near the middle of

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous P ...

, above sea level in an exposed location close to

Dartmoor Prison HM Prison Dartmoor is a Category C men's prison, located in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in the English county of Devon. Its high granite walls dominate this area of the moor. The prison is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and is operated by ...

. Permission for the construction of the church was given 1812 by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty. The church was designed by the architect Daniel Alexander and built by prisoners from the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and finished by those captured during the American war who were held in the prison, and is the only church in England to have been built by prisoners of war. The three stage west tower is surmounted by pinnacles. Prisoners of war were held in the prison until 1816 and then the church closed. It was reopened and reconsecrated in 1831. In 1868 the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

was altered and between 1898 and 1901 further alterations and expansion were undertaken under the direction of

Edmund Sedding Edmund Sedding (20 June 1836 – 1868) was an English architect and musician. Biography Sedding, son of Richard and Peninnah Sedding of Summerstown, near Okehampton, Devon, was born on 20 June 1836: John Dando Sedding was his younger brother. He ...

. In 1915 the tower was restored. The east window has stained glass by Mayer of Munich, which was installed in 1910 in memory of the American prisoners who helped to build the church. The graves of many prisoners are in the churchyard. The window was partially funded by a donation of £250, in 1908, from the National Society United States Daughters of 1812 as part of their work commemorating those who died in the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

. The church was declared redundant on 1 November 1995, and was

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...

in the Trust on 8 January 2001. It is still consecrated and it is used occasionally for services.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Princetown, Church of Saint Michael Church of England church buildings in Devon Churches completed in 1814 Grade II* listed churches in Devon Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Devon

See also

References