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

St Michael the Archangel's is the Grade II listed Church of England parish church of East Teignmouth, standing close to the seafront in the Devon resort of Teignmouth. A handsome building of the early nineteenth century, enlarged and crowned with a great tower in the Victorian age, it preserves among its fittings a vivid reminder of the day the French burned the town.

The present church was built between 1821 and 1823 to the designs of Andrew Patey of Exeter, and consecrated by William Carey, Bishop of Exeter, on 21 October 1823. It grew steadily through the nineteenth century. A vestry and a new chancel, the latter by F. C. Deshon, were added in 1875, and by 1882, after delays caused by lack of funds, the interior had been reseated, the side galleries removed and a western gallery built to keep the necessary seating, the walls and pillars replastered and coloured and the ceiling painted French grey. The church's crowning feature came between 1887 and 1889, when R. M. Fulford raised a west tower in the Early English style. Known as the Jubilee Tower in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and built at a cost of £2,500 in limestone and dark red Kingsteignton stone, it rose to 111 feet, carried a figure of St Michael over its western doorway, and was topped by a fifty-foot flagpole. The South Lady Chapel followed between 1923 and 1927, designed by Sir Charles Nicholson and dedicated by the Bishop of Exeter, Lord William Cecil, on 6 November 1927.

The church's most evocative treasure is a painted wooden panel on the south wall, dated 1700 and bearing the royal arms of William III. It was presented to the church after the sacking of Teignmouth by the French in 1690 — the last time a French force burned an English town — and stands as a memorial to that raid and to the loyalty of the rebuilt community. Among the monuments are memorials to Rear-Admiral George Tobin and to the ninth and tenth Strachan baronets.

Music has long had an important place at St Michael's. An organ installed by Mr Dicker in 1853 proved insufficient and was replaced in 1859 by an instrument from Robert Hamlin of London, paid for by H. A. Hoare and said at the time to be the largest in the West of England, with thirty-six speaking stops over three manuals and pedals. Moved to a new organ chamber and enlarged in 1881, it was further renovated by Hele and Co in 1895 and 1970. The tower holds a ring of eight bells cast in 1897 by Llewellins & James of Bristol, fitted with apparatus allowing the clock's chiming to be connected to them and for silent practice, and a clock provided in 1889 by John Smith of Derby, using the three-legged gravity escapement designed by Lord Grimthorpe, with four dials and a temperature-compensating pendulum said to keep time to within about ten seconds a month. Together, tower, bells, clock and the old royal arms make St Michael's a church that gathers the long history of seaside Teignmouth — from French raid to Victorian confidence — beneath one Devon spire.