Church Of St Michael And All Angels

The Church of St Michael and All Angels is a church largely rebuilt in the 19th century, with origins in the 15th century. The north side dates to 1821, the nave and south side to 1840-44, the east wall of the chancel to 1883, and the tower to 1886-88, designed by Crowther. A north porch was added around 1920. The church is constructed of ashlar, with the 19th-century gritstone facing concealing parts of the original medieval red sandstone walls. It has a 3-sided gallery housed within aisles, a chancel, and a west tower. The architectural style is Victorian Gothic, primarily in the Perpendicular style.

The church consists of a 5-bay nave and a 3-bay chancel, featuring a weathered plinth, buttresses and a castellated parapet that steps down to mark the chancel. There are 3- and 4-light transomed windows with interlaced tracery to the north aisle and clerestory, with Perpendicular tracery elsewhere, including a 7-light east window. Hoodmoulds have carved head stops, with some on the south side dating from the 15th century. North and south porches are present. The imposing 4-stage tower has setbacks, gabled buttresses topped with crocketed pinnacles, a heavily moulded west door surround, a 5-light window, a clock in the third stage, and two 2-light belfry windows on each face. The parapet's castellations are pierced and enriched.

The interior’s arrangement is unusual, with only a fraction of the chancel occupied by the sanctuary and a lack of a choir, allowing seating to extend from the nave and face west towards a 3-decker pulpit against the north arcade. The chancel is defined by a chancel arch bearing the royal coat of arms and a slight drop in ceiling level. The plastered ceiling has cambered beams supporting enriched, decoratively painted bosses and panels. Heavily moulded columns of the nave arcades support timber galleries, part of which formed a chantry chapel in the 18th century. The architecture is characterized by heavy decoration of stone and timberwork, including intricate mouldings and blind arcading covering the arcade spandrels, chancel arch, timber galleries, and many fittings. Early stained glass from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, now in the aisles, originally came from the east window and depicts scenes of the life of St. Helena, members of the Assheton family and three saintly kings. A John Postlethwaite wall memorial, dated 1818 and designed by T. McDermott, is also present. The church is notable for being largely built in the 1840s but possessing an unexpected arrangement and appearance for that period.