Church Heritage Record 615137

Rectangular plan. West tower (with kitchen and WCs in base). 2-bay aisled nave with clerestory and north porch. Shallow north and south transepts. 2-bay chancel with chapels to north and south.

[Approximate] Nave 15m (50ft) long x 7m wide (23ft), aisles 3m (10ft) wide chancel 7½ m long (25ft)

Honiton is a historic market town which grew up around the Roman road, the Fosse Way, and is now famed for its lace. The settlement recorded in the Domesday book is understood to have been near to the site of St Michael’s rather than in the valley where the town is today.

The first record of a church on the site was of a small chapel in 1406. St Michael’s was built by Peter de Courtenay the Bishop of Exeter and Lord of the Manor of Honiton c.1480. John Takell, a resident who died in 1529, is supposed to have rebuilt and enlarged the chancel, text engraved on the easternmost chancel capitals is a prayer to him and his wife. Aisles and porch are thought to have been added around this time. The church was reseated in the 18th Century and galleries were erected in the early 19th Century. These and the pews were removed when the church was restored in 1895-96 by E H Harbottle. New pews were installed. A lanterned tower may at one time have risen from the crossing.

St Michael was the parish church of Honiton until a new parish church, St Paul’s, was built in 1837-38 in the centre of the ‘modern’ town leaving St Michael’s as a chapel of ease.

A fire in March 1911 destroyed much of the interior including an ornate 15th-century 11-bay carved oak rood screen (a 4-bay section survives substantially reduced), barrel vaulted ceiling, pulpit, pews and stained glass. C E Ponting restored the church, work was completed the following year. New screens have subsequently been erected. In 2000 the south chapel was furnished with war memorials from the former Allhallows School which once occupied the site of St Paul’s (Honiton museum building is the only surviving building on the site).

A number of Roman and Middle Bronze age and Roman finds have been recorded in the locality and the Devon and Dartmoor Historic Environment Record should be consulted prior to any development of the site. In 1894 during the construction of the heating chamber on the north side foundations of a previous church were found. Excavations at the east end are also understood to have identified the 15th Century floor level. The archaeological potential of the site is high. There are no known designations relating to the ecology of the plot, though it contains many mature trees and is situated within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Though the list description is only three sentences long, there is a great deal to note at St Michael’s. It is a stone, late perpendicular gothic style church in a large churchyard. The west tower has 3-tier clasping angle buttresses and a crenellated parapet. There are gargoyles at each corner and 2-light louvred windows on each side of the belfry. In the south-east corner a square plan stair turret accessed from an external south door extends beyond the height of the parapet. In the west elevation there is a door (not in use) bordered by a carved vine frieze with a 4-light window situated above.

The crenellated parapet repeats along the north and south elevations of the church, interrupted only by the porch and transepts. The west ends of both aisles have 3-light windows with square-headed two-light windows above set beneath a small gable. At the east end the aisle windows are of 4-lights. The width of the aisles is virtually equal to the nave which has a 5-light window. The roofs of the chancel and east chapels are marginally lower than the nave and aisles.

North and south transepts are flush with the nave walls, differentiation is provided by their roof-line and larger window size. The south wall is rendered and has 2-tier buttresses placed between each bay. 3-light perpendicular tracery windows light both aisles, an exception in the north-west corner where there is a 4-light window matching the transepts. The north wall has greater movement than the south with a door into the north chapel at the east end, and a projecting 3-sided bay with blocked door which would once have provided access into a private pew and the rood-loft. The projecting buttressed north porch is gabled with crenellation along the east and west sides. A single open lancet in the apex lights the porch. Ornate wrought-iron gates screen the entrance (understood to be the remainder of a memorial to Sir James Shepherd which was damaged in the fire). There are stone benches built into the porch on either side. The main studded oak door is set within a moulded surround.

The interior is wide, spacious and light on account of large windows and predominantly clear glass (discrete modern spotlights along the wall-plates). Pointed arcades are carried on clustered pilasters with shallow capitals carved with a vine motif which is repeated throughout the interior. Above the nave arcades are octafoil clerestory windows hidden from the outside by their position in the roof valleys.

The space which has a wood-block floor is clear of seats. The pews were destroyed in the fire and replacement wooden chairs have since been swapped for plastic stacking chairs now stacked against the south wall. There are some inlaid ledger stones at the west end and several redundant cast iron heating grilles. The floor level rises from west to east with a step in the north-west corner between the nave and aisle. The walls are plastered and white washed, stone surrounds remain exposed.

Beneath a high pointed arch at the west end, the inside of which is decorated with tracery panels, the base of the tower is separated from the nave by the remains of the medieval chancel screen and a curtain. These hide a small kitchenette and WCs within the base. There is an internal porch to the west behind a panelled oak partition. Above is a large stained glass window.

On a plinth above the north door is a gilded angel, believed to have once stood over a pulpit sounding board. East of the door is the Marwood tomb. High in the wall on the west side of the arch between the north transept and chapel is an opening which would have provided access into the rood loft. A door is placed to its east. A piscina is set within the south transept wall. The font is positioned between the south aisle and transept.

A fine timber wagon roof with chamfered ribs and carved wooden bosses ceils the space. Particularly pleasing is the crossing of the nave, chancel and transepts which Pevsner compares to the 14th-century roof at Luppitt, St Mary’s, situated north of Honiton.  The weight is borne by corbels on three sides and to the south-west by a pilaster which extends the height of the pier. Each pier is slightly different. Those to the west are much larger than the others in the church. That to the north-west has two square sides facing the crossing, those to the chancel are clustered like most in the church.

Chapels either side of the chancel are separated by ornate carved oak screens made by Herbert Read in 1926. Stone slab floors are inlaid with ledger stones. That to the north has no furniture but a number of memorials, that to the south is furnished with war memorials relocated from Allhallows School with a stained glass window to the south. Low unfixed screens (war memorials) separate the south chapel from the south transept. A piscina is positioned in the south-east corner and a figurative corbel with bulbous caricature-like face projects from the east wall.

The chancel and its adjacent chapels are raised by a single step from the nave. A solid timber beam spans the pointed chancel arch resting on corbels below the springing point. The chancel is paved in black and white marble squares. Either side of the chancel are oak choir stalls with ornate ends on raised fixed platforms (either 1895 or re-made to pre-fire design). The capitals of the easternmost piers are carved with text. There is a step up to the sanctuary where the direction of the tiles changes providing a contrast. The altar is raised by a further step. An ornate carved oak screen with gold embellishment covers the east wall beneath the stained glass window.