Church of St Michael is a Grade I listed building in the West Lancashire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 11 October 1968. A Medieval Church. 1 related planning application.
Church of St Michael
- WRENN ID
- gentle-pediment-bramble
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- West Lancashire
- Constituency
- West Lancashire MP: Ashley Dalton (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 11 October 1968
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Michael, Church Lane, Aughton, L39 6SB
- OS grid reference
- SD 391 054
- Coordinates
- 53.54187, -2.91975
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Michael is a parish church dating to the 14th century, with fabric surviving from the mid-12th and 13th centuries, a 15th-century north arcade, and a mid-16th-century north aisle. It was largely restored in 1876, when the 15th-century chancel was rebuilt. The church is constructed of squared sandstone with a stone slate roof and consists of a nave, a south porch, a lower chancel, a north tower with a stone spire, a north aisle, a north chapel, and a north vestry.
The west nave window is of four lights with reticulated tracery, which was restored in the 19th century. The west window of the north aisle has four lights, a transom, and tracery under a four-centred head. In the south wall of the nave are three early 20th-century windows of two lights with reticulated tracery under flat heads. Above and to the right of the porch is a window of three lights under a flat head. The gabled porch has a pointed, chamfered outer doorway. The inner doorway is of 15th-century date, moulded, and pointed. To the right of the porch, partially obscured by a buttress, are the remains of a mid-12th-century doorway of two plain orders with angle shafts and scalloped capitals. The south chancel wall has three bays and features three-light windows with tracery under pointed heads. The east window is of five lights with a transom, tracery, and a Tudor-arched head. The east window of the north chapel has three trefoiled lights under a flat head, with a further window above it of three pointed lights under a flat head. The north aisle has four windows of three lights with intersecting tracery under round heads. A pointed window of two lights with restored Y- tracery is at the base of the tower. The tower rises to an octagonal bell stage with openings of two trefoiled lights with a quatrefoil under a pointed head.
Inside, the north arcade consists of four bays with pointed arches, chamfered in two orders springing from octagonal columns with capitals. To the east is a tower arch, chamfered in three orders dying into splayed reveals. The nave roof is of 16th-century date and has eight bays, with arch-braces down to short wall posts and up to collars with central pendant bosses; straight windbraces and principals joined by a yoke below the ridge. The north aisle roof, of six bays, is similar but has cusped windbraces and no bosses. At the east end of the north aisle is a pointed tower arch, the line of the roof of an earlier, narrower aisle visible above. In the north wall of the tower is a recess with a cusped and moulded arch. Between the north chapel and the chancel are two moulded pointed arches of 19th-century date. A 19th-century tomb chest in a Gothic style sits in a recess with a cusped arch and crocketed gable within the north aisle of the chancel. The 19th-century chancel roof has six bays, with arch-braced collar trusses rising from alternately carved angel corbels. The 18th-century communion rails are turned and fluted, and the elaborately carved 19th-century timber pulpit features tracery and figures.
Local climate
Church of St Michael sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,140 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 86% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 18 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 82% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 1 application
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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