St Michael, Devonport & St Michael, West Hoe

Unknown item – Chaytor (1990)

‘St Michael’ is listed by Chaytor as one in which Pinwill work may be found on the basis of plans of work submitted for tender that no longer exist. This may mean St Michael, Devonport, but could also refer to St Michael, West Hoe. The first church of St Michael, Devonport, was built in 1843 and destroyed by bombing in 1941 (Twyford, 2005). It was replaced by a new church opened in 1953 but was later demolished and a third church built on the site in 2009 (achurchnearyou.com). This implies that any item made by V. Pinwill would have either been lost in 1941 or replaced in the later refurbishments. St Michael, West Hoe, was originally a mission church of St James the Less in Citadel Road. When Father Maurice Child became Curate of St James in 1912, he oversaw the refurbishment of St Michael in the Baroque style, which became an expression of a renewed assertion of Anglo-Catholicism (Yelton, 2005). The church was later replaced by a permanent building and the furnishings renewed. It was declared redundant in about 1995 and is now a Greek Orthodox Church.

Sources

Chaytor, E. (1990) Ermington Days. Melinga Publishing, North Cheam.

Twyford, H. P. (2005) It Came To Our Door. Plymouth in World War II – A Journalist’s Eye Witness Account. Revised and illustrated by C. Robinson. Pen & Ink Publishing, Plymouth.

Yelton, M. (2005) Anglican Papalism. A History: 1900-1960. Canterbury Press, Norwich.