Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael, Great Coates Road, Little Coates, Grimsby

This Grade I listed church comprises two distinct phases of building. The earliest section dates from the 14th and 15th centuries, while a major new construction was added in 1913–14, designed by architect Walter Tapper in 13th-century style.

The early medieval section is built in ironstone rubble and cobbles with ironstone ashlar and limestone dressings. It consists of a four-bay nave with a three-bay south aisle and single-bay chancel. The 20th-century section, built in limestone ashlar, includes a four-bay nave, four-bay chancel and west tower. The roof is covered in green slate except for the south aisle, which has a lead roof.

The exterior of the early section features a chamfered plinth. The former chancel, now a side chapel, has a small carved decorated stone tablet dated 1691 on its south wall. The chancel's pointed four-light east window displays Perpendicular tracery. The south aisle has a pointed chamfered south door and a pair of square-headed two-light south windows with Perpendicular tracery and hoodmoulds. The west side of the early nave contains a small 20th-century two-light traceried window with hoodmould, and a mutilated trefoiled niche that incorporates a reused fragment of an incised medieval grave slab.

The 20th-century section exhibits tall angle buttresses and buttresses between bays with offsets. The chancel has pointed three-light north and south windows with simple tracery, and a pointed seven-light east window with a narrow blind cusped niche above flanked by single quatrefoils. The nave has square-headed two-light north windows with reticulated tracery and hoodmoulds, with small quatrefoil ventilation openings below, many now blocked, and a coped parapet. Between the nave and chancel stands a tall octagonal stair turret with pierced quatrefoils, slit lights and coped parapet. Coped gables and a gabled sanctus bellcote at the east end of the nave have buttresses and an ogee bell-opening.

The squat two-stage tower has buttresses with offsets. The pointed west door features two wave-moulded orders beneath a hoodmould. The north side displays a segmental-pointed four-light window with trefoiled ogee lights and hoodmould, and above it a pointed two-light window with reticulated tracery and hoodmould. The south side has a stair turret with slit lights. A string course divides the stages. The upper stage has narrow single-light cinquefoiled belfry openings to north and south, and a square-headed two-light window to the west. The plain parapet displays a shield and IHS inscription to the west, beneath a low pyramidal roof.

The interior of the early section contains a two-bay 14th-century south arcade with double-chamfered arches on an octagonal pier with plain moulded capitals and arches dying into responds. A small stoup near the south door has a pointed arch and octagonal bowl. A pointed double-chamfered chancel arch has an inner order on moulded corbels, one carved with a head. The former chancel roof comprises three bays with cranked tie-beams featuring pellet-mouldings and carved bosses; the east truss was adapted to form a hammerbeam to accommodate the east window.

The 20th-century section features an impressive chancel with a pointed chancel arch of two wave-moulded orders with hoodmould and filleted quatrefoiled responds. The roof is a four-bay quadripartite vault carried on thin quatrefoiled shafts with filleted ribs and elaborate carved bosses. Window reveals are moulded with nook shafts. A stone reredos with crenellated top and pair of pointed chamfered vestry doors flanks the altar. The piscina has an ogee trefoiled head with a crocketed ogee hood, finial and carved stops, and a bowl carved with a Green Man. Traceried wooden screens separate the chancel arch and side chapel.

The nave contains a two-bay arcade to the former chancel with pointed arches of two chamfered and wave-moulded orders on a quatrefoil pier with arches dying into responds. A three-bay nave arcade has pointed double-chamfered arches on round columns with plain moulded bases and capitals, with arches dying into the responds. The tower arch comprises two chamfered and wave-moulded orders dying into responds, with a gallery above bearing a Latin inscription in Gothic lettering. A carved octagonal pulpit and octagonal font with cusped panels are present. The monuments include a 13th-century tomb slab at the base of the tower.