Church Of St Michael

The Church of St Michael is a red brick building dating from 1628, originally of vernacular form, with a classical style west front and tower added in 1722. The church sits on a stone plinth and has a slate roof. It comprises a single vessel incorporating a tower which rises through the roof ridge at the west end, and a short 19th-century chancel. A low gabled porch on the south side has a segmental entrance arch with leaf spandrels and a hoodmould, above which is a tablet inscribed "PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD BELIEVE OBEY". The gable coping features flaming urn finials on the kneelers and at the apex. Inside the porch is a studded plank door set within a wooden doorcase, with a lintel lettered in relief "1628", and painted tablets displaying the Commandments and Lord's Prayer. Diaper patterns of blue headers adorn the side walls of the porch and the nave wall to its left. A matching flush doorcase is present on the north wall, with a studded plank door. Round-headed stone mullion windows with hollow spandrels are set into both side walls; west of the doors are two windows of four lights, and east of them three similar but taller windows, the easternmost of three lights. The gabled west front features a band at eaves level, broken in the centre by a blank arch supported by Tuscan demi-columns, forming a two-stage tower. This arch embraces a door with a moulded architrave, and is filled with a large oval bullseye window with a moulded surround and keystone. The tower has rusticated quoins, bands on both levels, a rectangular window with two cusped lights, round-headed belfry openings each with two slated louvres, and a battlemented coping with pinnacles. A large painted sundial dated 1875 is on the south wall of the tower. Dormer windows in the nave roof illuminate an interior wall where the eastern corners of the tower are supported on freestanding Tuscan columns. Inside, the nave has a low coved ceiling and galleries on the south and west sides, supported by iron columns and accessed by a quarter-turn stair with turned and splat balusters. Furnishings include a raised box pulpit with a sounding board, a carved 17th-century desk (currently not in situ), a polygonal font on a square pillar, lettered "DEO/DONUM/JOHAN/STONES/AN DOM/1663", box pews with some 17th-century bench ends, and a Victorian tablet commemorating Jeremiah Horrocks (Curate of Hoole and astronomer, d. 1641), alongside a hatchment on the south wall.