TORQUAY CHURCHES
The New Church of England Parishes
Parish of St Luke the Evangelist
And the Mission Church of St Michael’s and All Angels
By 1861, due to the enormous rise in the population, another Chapel of Ease was needed and so on 9th May the foundation stone of St Luke’s Church was laid in a position on top of Waldon Hill and overlooking the sea front. In 1869 St Luke’s was created a parish, taking part from Tormoham and part from Upton. It was an expensive church to built both in cost of the land and the amount of preparation work needed on the site. In 1870 the chancel was enlarged and the roof of the chancel was highly decorated with inscriptions or illustrations .
View from the opposite direction
Interior view before the fire in 1964 .Disaster struck and the church building was severely damaged by fire, but the building was restored and today is still very active.
The church today
The schools for St Luke’s were started in Rock Road in October 1861 and opened in April 1862 and could accommodate 200 children. The infants school building has survived to this day, although now used as living accommodation , the original engraved name is still clearly visible over the door
St Michael's and All Angels
picture of the interior dated 1906.
In order to promote mission services within the poorer quarters of the town a former coal cellar was acquired in Pimlico and was fitted out as a place of worship - this soon became too small and it was decided to build a new church. A site was acquired on the corner of Pimlico with Market Street, and in July 1875 the foundation stone was laid for St Michael's and All Angels. It opened in April 1877. This area became a parish shortly after WW2 and so St Michaels became a parish church, this situation ended in 1966 and for a short period the church reverted to a mission church this time under the care of St John's. Unusually for Torquay the stone chosen for this new building was to be red conglomerate from Paignton (instead of the normal local limestone) and whilst this gave the building a lovely rich red glow, it was to prove its downfall. For the weather and modern traffic conditions caused deterioration of the stone and pieces were prone to fall off. This led to the building being sold in 1968 and demolished - a supermarket being built on the site.
Probably because of its very hemmed in position it has proved impossible to find a picture I can use here - there are a couple, showing part of the church in the archives but the charges asked for the use of them was beyond my pocket.
Although my family lived out of the area, in Ellacombe, My uncle was the first person to marry there, myself and my brothers and sister were all baptised there