St Michael's - Mount Dinham

With its high position on Mount Dinham, St Michael's is a prominent landmark from most areas of north west Exeter. And so it should be as it possesses the highest spire at 70 m (230 ft) west of Salisbury, although it is equipped with a single bell weighing 26 cwt including the frame work, tuned to E. The church is built on land donated by the philanthropist John Dinham who leant his name to the area. He built almshouses for the poor and planned a school on his land, as well as a chapel. He decided to purchase the land as it was frequently used for fairs which he felt were posing a moral danger to the young.

After Dinham's death in June 1864, The Revd. Joseph Theophilus Toye the incumbent of St David's suggested building a church in his memory, at a meeting that planned to honour Dinham with a statue. He approached William Gibbs of Tyntesfield for funding and built a rather grander neo-gothic Anglo-Catholic church, at a cost of £21,000, than Dinham intended. The vicar was left an endowment of £70 per annum which proved to be inadequate in future years. William Gibbs had spent time at Cleve House in Exwick as a child, and his father, Anthony Gibbs built the woollen mill and factory in 1787 in the village, in partnership with Samual Banfill and Edmund Granger. Gibbs took over his father's merchant business in London and made his fortune importing guano as fertiliser in the mid nineteenth-century. He also enlarged St Andrew's Church in Exwick.

St Michael's was designed by Major Rhode-Hawkins in the Decorated style, and built between 1865 and 1868. Constructed of blue Westleigh stone by G P White of Vauxhall, London, and the extensive carvings were executed by Hurley of Taunton. Over the door is a carving representing St Michael overcoming Satan.

The church was consecrated by the Revd. John Medley, Bishop of Fredricton, Canada on 29th September 1868, Michaelmas Day. The collection for the two services on the first day amounted to £175 5s 4d, indicating that the congregations were quite wealthy – not the sort of sum that would have been collected at St Edmund's or St George's in the West Quarter.

It was equipped with the latest gas lighting and could seat 700. The interior is surprisingly high at 65 ft while the pulpit was carved from English oak, from a design by Sir A W Blomfield, and carved by Harry Hems of Longbrook Street. In 1883 the chancel was decorated with wall paintings, roof decoration and some stained glass, along with a recumbent figure of William Gibbs by H Armstead RA. Further embellishments were added in 1899.

Initially, men and women were segregated, with men on the north side, and women on the south. This practice led to a correspondence in the Flying Post with one letter writer stating that the church had acquired the nomenclature of the "Divorce Court." The church also received a fair amount of criticism for the High Church form of its services, and some not liking what they considered to be 'ritualism' which was driving away Protestantism.

During the Second World War the church was used for many concerts as it was possible to achieved a complete blackout in the space. St Davids and St Michael's are now served by a single priest. In 2002, a pair of peregrine falcons nested in the tower, and a webcamera installed to view them from a page on the local BBC news site. The falcons still nest on the spire most years.

Sources: St Michael's website, Kelly's 1897, Flying Post, Robert Clark webpage on single bell churches and other miscellaneous sources.