Church Of St Michael

Church of St. Michael

A church dating from 1880–81, designed by W. Swinden Barber of Halifax, constructed largely from large, punch-dressed stone salvaged from an earlier church on the site, supplemented by Morley Stone sourced from Denton quarries. The roof is Welsh blue slate. The building is executed in Perpendicular style and comprises a west tower, nave, aisles, chancel, south vestry, and south porch.

The west tower rises in four stages and is embattled with angle buttresses. At the south-west corner, an octagonal stair-turret rises above the tower and is surmounted by a weather vane. The first stage contains a 2-light window; the second stage has a lancet; the third stage carries a clock on three sides; the fourth stage is a 2-light belfry opening with cusped lights.

The nave extends for four bays and is flanked by aisles with a clerestorey above. The porch, set into the first bay, features an arched doorway with a hoodmould terminating in carved face stops and a coped gable. Within the porch stands the reused Norman doorway, dating to around 1160, displaying three decorative orders: chevron, and zig-zag incorporating beak-head ornament, probably of the third order but now replaced by a curious cross-bones motif. The original capitals survive, though the columns have been renewed.

The aisle windows comprise two sets of 3-light windows with cusped lights and curvilinear tracery, and a 2-light window to the fourth bay. The clerestorey has 3-light chamfered mullioned windows with trefoil cusped lights. The north aisle extends one bay into the chancel.

The south vestry, which breaks forward from the main body, is gabled and features a pointed doorway with an ogee lintel set in its west wall. A 3-light window with a taller central cusped light sits in the gable. A lateral stack rises at the junction of the second bay with the chancel, which has a lower roof than the nave. Both have coped gables with crosses at the apex.

The chancel is lit by a 4-light east window with cusped lights and panel tracery surmounted by an octofoil.

Interior

The interior is relatively plain, with pointed-arched arcades carried on octagonal piers bearing square moulded capitals. The roof is a collar-rafter design with crossed principals.

Several monuments from the earlier church are retained, most notably one commemorating the Reverend Ingram Shaw, dating to around 1766. The font, dated 1663, is octagonal with recessed, cyma-moulded panels, two of which bear the date in raised numerals. It has an octagonal base and shaft. The Churchwardens' Accounts record that the stone cost 5 shillings, and that Michael Nettleton was paid £1 1 shilling and 4 pence for making and carving the font, plus 6 pence for sharpening his tools. Set under the porch is the grave of John Field (1520–1586), noted as the first astronomer in this country to make known the discoveries of Copernicus.

Stained glass memorial windows were supplied by Heaton, Butler and Bayne of London. The vestry contains panelling fashioned from the box pews of the earlier church; one is inscribed and dated "1634 R.S.E.S.", referring to Robert and Elizabeth Shaw of Ardsley Hall.

Historical Context

The original church served as a chapel of ease for St. Mary's, Woodkirk, and belonged to Nostell Priory. Following the Reformation, it passed to the Savile Family and subsequently, by marriage, to the Earl of Cardigan. The patroness of the present church was Lady Cardigan, widow of the 7th Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade. The Cardigan family remain patrons of the living at East Ardsley.