St Michael's Mount time in Britain in the 1930s, when he had proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany, General von Ribbentrop frequently visited Cornwall. In 1954, Francis Cecil St Aubyn, 3rd Baron St Levan gave most of St Michael's Mount to the National Trust, together with a large endowment fund. The St Aubyn family retained a 999-year lease to inhabit the castle and a licence to manage the public viewing of its historic rooms. This is managed in conjunction with the National Trust. The chapel of St Michael, a fifteenth-century building, has an embattled tower, one angle of which is a small turret,
St Michael on the Mount Without original church on the site was Norman. As it was outside the original city walls it was known as St Michael on the Mount Without. The tower was added in the 15th century. Bells were installed in the tower in 1739. By the 1760s the population of the city and parish had grown requiring expansion of church. A survey by Thomas Paty described the fabric of the old building as "ruinous" and, as a result demolition of everything except the tower was undertaken and it was rebuilt. It has an aisled nave, chancel and north and south porches, along with