On his 1818 purchase Knight's father had accepted a contractual potential liability of having to build a parish church at Simonsbath should the population expand to the size to need one, and this became the case in 1845 when 18 residents of his estate put forward a petition stating a church was then needed. The Church of St Luke, about 1/2 mile to the east and uphill of Simonsbath House, was finally consecrated in 1856, and a new parish called Exmoor was created to cover the whole estate which had always been extra-parochial. Knight gave 12 acres to form the churchyard.