Dalston is situated about four miles S of Carlisle, and the church is located in the village square. The church of St Michael consists of a nave, chancel and small transept on the S side. In 1923, Collingwood wrote that the lower courses of the church of St Michael’s were of 12thc date and that the chancel was 13thc. The church was partly rebuilt in 1749 and restorations on the chancel carried out in 1873. In 1890, the nave was restored and a N porch added.

Surviving from the 12thc is a single capital, now built into an interior wall in the former N porch (now a toilet facility).

There was no Domesday Book for this part of England. In 1777, Nicolson and Burn re-stated Denton (early 17thc) that the Barony of Dalston had been given by Randolph/Ranulf de Meshines, Earl of Cumberland, to Robert de Vallibus, brother of Hubert de Vallibus of Gilsland, and that Robert de Vallibus took the name of Dalston. This was repeated as fact for many years, but Haswell argued against this in his article of 1910. The statement also appears in the Registrum Prioratus de Wetheral, but Prescott wrote that this was ‘one of those common and inaccurate compilations found in so many of these old Registers and Chartularies’.

Between 1185-7 and 1230, the manor of Dalston was in the hands of the king. In a charter of 1204, one first hears the name of a rector, Americ Thebert, who had been appointed in 1196. Americ was confirmed in the archdeaconry of Carlisle and the church of ‘Daleston’. Following this, in 1230, the manor and advowson of the church were granted to the bishop of Carlisle. Not until 1301 is there firm evidence of the manor being in the possession of the Dalston family. In the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of 1290-1, Dalston was valued at £43.16s.0d., of which £15 was for the ‘Porcio Archidiaconi in Ecclesia de Dalston’, £16.0s.0d. for the ‘Porcio Scholarum Karli’ in Ecclesia de Dalston’ and £12.16s.0d. for the ‘Vicar’ Ejusdem’. In 1765, with the death of George Dalston, the direct line of the Dalston family ceased and the baronetcy came to an end. The church of Dalston was rectorial up to 1304, after which it was made vicarial with an endowment, as set out in the bishop’s ordinance of 1307. The bishop reserved for himself the greater portion of the tithes. George Bewley was vicar of Dalston throughout the Reformation movement. He first appears in 1535 and he remained vicar until his death in 1570.

The beaded scallop form and the foliate decorated upper shield are features that appear on a capital in Carlisle Cathedral at the W end of the N nave aisle, while a related ‘tree’ motif appears both on a S nave arcade capital in the cathedral and on a loose fragment of a capital found on a wall in the cathedral close, subsequently taken inside. Fruit with criss-crossed lines can be found on a capital at Warwick-on-Eden, a church whose carved work appears also to relate to that of Carlisle Cathedral. The most likely date for the Dalson capital is either the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 12thc.