Hidden Dartmoor St Michael and All Angels Church Princetown A Church Built By Prisoners Of War
Princetown is a village located within Dartmoor national park in the English county of Devon. It is the principal settlement of the civil parish of Dartmoor Forest.
The village has its origins in 1785, when Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, then secretary to the Prince of Wales, leased a large area of moorland from the Duchy of Cornwall estate, hoping to convert it into good farmland. He encouraged people to live in the area and suggested that a prison be built there. He called the settlement Princetown after the Prince of Wales.
Princetown is the site of Dartmoor Prison. At around 1,430 feet (435 m) above sea level, it is the highest settlement on the moor, and one of the highest in the United Kingdom. It is also the largest settlement located on the high moor. The Princetown Railway, closed in 1956, was also the highest railway line in England.
In 1780, a farm was reclaimed on the site of an ancient tenement near the Two Bridges, and in 1785, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt set about improving the moor at a place which he named Tor Royal (present day Tor Royal Farm), about 1 km (0.6 mi) south-east of Princetown. The Plume of Feathers Inn also bears this date on its sign. He made an estate and built a house in 1798. Later the road from Tavistock to Princetown was built, as well as the other roads that now cross the moor
He also proposed that a prison be built on Dartmoor to house the thousands of captives of the Napoleonic Wars and the later War of 1812, who had become too numerous to lodge in the prisons and prison-ships at Plymouth. Dartmoor Prison was built in 1806 at a cost of £130,000. At one time it had a capacity of between 7,000 and 9,000 prisoners, but its current capacity is only 640.
A small town grew up near the prison. Two large inns were built during the war - the current Prince of Wales and the former Devil's Elbow / Railway Inn (now the Ramblers' Rest Guesthouse). Many of the prisoners had prize money to come from their own country; many others made their own money in their hammocks at night, even forging Bank of England and local bank notes, which they passed off in the great daily market held in the prison. With the closing of the prison in 1816, the town almost collapsed, but the completion of the Princetown Railway in 1823 brought back many people to the granite quarries. The prison remained derelict until 1851, when it was reopened for prisoners serving long sentences. It has since been considerably extended and although other Victorian era prisons are to remain in service, Dartmoor was scheduled to close in 2023, but an extension lease has now been signed to keep it open beyond that date.
The Anglican Church of St Michael (sometimes known as St Michael and All Angels) in Princetown, Devon, England was built between 1810 and 1814. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and is a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
The church was designed by the architect Daniel Alexander and built by prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars and finished by those captured during the American war who were held in the prison, and is the only church in England to have been built by prisoners of war.
The east window has stained glass by Mayer of Munich, which was installed in 1910 in memory of the American prisoners who helped to build the church. The graves of many prisoners are in the churchyard. The window was partially funded by a donation of £250, in 1908, from the National Society United States Daughters of 1812 as part of their work commemorating those who died in the War of 1812. The church was declared redundant on 1 November 1995, and was vested in the Trust on 8 January 2001. It is still consecrated and it is used occasionally for services.
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