Qualla: St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth

St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrewrabbott, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the south porch of St Saviour's Church in Dartmouth there is a door that has been opening and closing for more than six hundred years. Two iron leopards face each other across its surface, hammered out by some unknown 14th-century blacksmith and surrounded by curling iron leaf scrolls. People have leaned on the door, pushed it, latched it, slipped through it on wet mornings, generation after generation, since before England had a national language anyone today would recognise. The leopards have not moved.

Image: Andrewrabbott | CC BY-SA 4.0

St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth: Built by a Three-Time Mayor

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Downer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The church was dedicated in 1372 as a chapel of ease to the older parish church of St Clement at Townstal, on the hill above the town. Dartmouth was growing fast - it was one of the great medieval English ports, the harbour from which Crusaders had sailed for the Holy Land - and ...

Image: Chris Downer | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth: A Screen That Survived the Reformation

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. The most remarkable surviving piece of the medieval church is the rood screen, installed in 1496. It is a single span of carved oak that runs across the church between the nave and the chancel, painted with figures of saints and apostles in the elaborate colours of the late medie...

Image: Simon Cobb | CC0

St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth: Bells, Organ, Clock

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Palmer, CC BY-SA 2.0. Look up in the tower and you find more than six centuries of fixtures and rebuildings. Church records from 1434 already mention an organ. The current organ began in 1789 as an instrument by Paul Micheau, was enlarged in 1889 by Bryceson Brothers of London at a cost of £600 into a...

Image: Simon Palmer | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Saviour's Church, Dartmouth: John Flavel and the Long Roll Call

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harry Mitchell, CC BY 4.0. On a board on the church wall is the list of every vicar of the parish since 1316 - Richard de Wydecomb, Henry Priour, Thomas de Coleton, names that fade through the centuries into more familiar English forms. One name on that list stands out for what happened after he held the p...

Image: Harry Mitchell | CC BY 4.0