St Michael And All Angels Church

St Michael And All Angels Church

Parish church built in 1855–1856 by H.I. Stevens, the Derby architect. The contractor was George Thompson. The new church replaced an earlier church on the site, from which a Saxon coffin lid, wall tablets and a piece from a wrought-iron reredos were installed in the new building. Stevens had an established reputation for church building in the East Midlands.

The building is constructed of coursed rock-faced sandstone with freestone dressings and has a graded slate roof. The plan comprises an aisled nave, lower chancel, west tower, south porch and north-east vestry.

The exterior is mainly in late Perpendicular style, with a Decorated chancel. The three-stage tower has clasping buttresses, an embattled parapet and corner pinnacles. The west face has a three-light window and a round clock face in the middle stage under a hood mould, with a south door featuring a continuous chamfer. The upper stage contains two-light openings with louvres. The three-bay aisles have three-light and two-light windows. The south porch has a steep roof and an entrance arch with continuous chamfer. The chancel has a three-light east window, a two-light south window and a doorway with continuous chamfer. The north vestry was added in 1999, though the scar of an earlier lean-to vestry roof is visible above it.

Inside, the nave arcades are in Decorated style with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches, with foliage capitals on the eastern responds. The chancel arch sits on polygonal responds. The tower arch, largely obscured by the organ, has a double-chamfer dying into the imposts. The nave and chancel have hammerbeam roofs, whilst the aisles have tie-beam roofs. Walls are of exposed freestone, with tiled floors except for raised floorboards beneath the pews.

Among the principal fixtures is wrought ironwork against the east wall of the north aisle, said to have been a reredos erected around 1739, though it resembles the overthrow of a gate screen. It is possibly by Robert Bakewell (1685–1752), one of the foremost architectural ironsmith of the early 18th century, and features generous use of repoussé ironwork including a trumpet-bearing angel, executed in a rustic manner. Above it hangs a Queen Anne Royal Arms painted on board. In the porch are two coffin slabs, one said to be of Saxon date and the other of the 13th century. Three 18th-century wall tablets are in the chancel, including a wall monument to Raphe Newman (died 1617) with a guilloche-moulded border. Other furnishings are mid-19th century or later. The octagonal font has quatrefoils around the bowl. Simple benches have ends with moulded tops. The 20th-century pulpit has linenfold panelling. Choir stalls have ends incorporating blind-tracery panels and foliage relief panels to the frontals. The wooden reredos features blind tracery. Three mid-20th-century windows of conventional design are present, two signed by Celtic Studios of Swansea.