Thursday 14th July at 6.00pm, CBS Mass at St Michael’s Mount Dinham in the St Clement’s Chapel, with Plainsong Propers, Merbecke & Hymns. The celebrant will be Fr Robin Eastoe from Heavitree Parish. All are welcome. Please pray for the St Michael’s District Church Committee Meeting which will follow this service.

We shall commemorate John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) Poet & Priest, who was born in Fairford, Gloucestershire where his father, the Rev. John Keble, was Vicar of Coln St Aldwyns. He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and, after a brilliant academic performance there, became a Fellow of Oriel College. While at Oxford he took Holy Orders in 1815.

His book of devotional verse, ‘The Christian Year’, appeared in 1827, and met with unparalleled acceptance. Though at first anonymous, its authorship soon became known, with the result that Keble was in 1831 appointed to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, which he held until 1841.

On 14th July 1833 his famous Assize Sermon on “National Apostasy” gave the first impulse to the Oxford Movement. Along with colleagues, including John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey, he became a leading light in the Tractarian Anglo-Catholic movement, but did not follow Newman into the Roman Catholic Church.

Keble died in Bournemouth at the Hermitage Hotel, after visiting the area to try and recover from a long term illness believing the sea air had therapeutic qualities.  Keble College, Oxford was founded in 1870 in his memory; its Chapel & Hall were paid for by William Gibbs who also paid for the building of this Church of St Michael & All Angels.

The view from Bulverton Hill, Sidmouth, where Keble was a frequent visitor, is thought to have inspired some of his best loved work.