Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

Parish church dating from the 12th to 13th centuries, with additions in the 14th and 15th centuries. The building is constructed of ironstone rubble with limestone dressings.

The church consists of a west tower and spire, a nave with two aisles and clerestory, and a chancel. The 13th-century tower is in three stages, the lowest of ironstone and the remainder limestone, with slim buttresses. A small west door is set in a chamfered archway with a window above it. The bell chamber has paired two-light long lancet openings in shafted recesses decorated with nail head ornament. A corbel table supports the heavy 13th-century broach spire, which is crowned with stumpy pinnacles at the angles and two tiers of lucarnes. A vestry of 1923 occupies the south-west angle.

The early 14th-century south aisle is faced with ashlar to sill level, then ironstone, with an embattled parapet and gargoyles. A 15th-century porch contains a doorway with a round shaft to the outer arch and buttresses in the plane of a coped gable. Two coffin lids, probably 12th or 13th century and carved with crosses in low relief, are set against the internal east wall. The inner doorway dates to the 14th century and is shafted with corbel heads. Aisle windows are three-lights with flowing Decorated tracery. The chancel is of ironstone rubble with an unprojecting ashlar sill band and is probably 13th-century in fabric. It contains one Perpendicular low side window to the south with square-headed lights, and two early Decorated plate-traceried lights. The east window is a Victorian restoration with three lights and flowing Decorated tracery in a shafted recess. Traces of a blocked doorway associated with a staircase remain in the east wall.

A large Rococo memorial against the north wall commemorates the Reverend George Fenwicke, died 1760. It features a high predella with swags flanking the inscription, capped by urns flanking a central block with shield of arms and volutes, surmounted by a central obelisk and urns.

The 14th-century north aisle incorporates masonry of a narrower 12th-century aisle, visible in the west wall. At its eastern angle stands a large octagonal turret with a rib-vaulted chamber below. The turret is decorated with traceried panels, trefoiled and crocketted niches, and a quatrefoil frieze, crowned by a pinnacle with fleurons. The quatrefoil frieze continues across the aisle parapet. Three-light Decorated windows and a doorway in a 15th-century porch are present, with the inner arch roll moulded and hollow chamfered. A Romanesque tympanum is incorporated into the internal west wall of the porch, depicting St Michael triumphing over the dragon with two tiny human supplicants in the lower corner.

Interior

The church sits below ground level to the north. The nave arcades consist of four bays. The north arcade is the earlier, dating to the 12th century, with high bases to round shafts and capitals with square abaci. The capitals progress from a simple fluted design at the west to elaborate water-leaf ornament towards the east. The third shaft is octagonal, belonging to an added 13th-century eastern bay. The arches are unchamfered and stepped with an outer hood mould. The south arcade is 14th-century with double-chamfered arches on octagonal shafts. East and west responds appear to belong to an earlier arcade with cylindrical shafts; the eastern capital features stylized and simple foliage on stalks.

The 15th-century clerestory contains squared lights in splays with 18th-century glazing to the north and paired foiled lights to the south. A 13th-century tower arch has clustered shafts and a triple-chamfered arch, with the profile of the former roof visible above it. The roof is a Victorian tie beam and king post design with bosses. A sill band runs through the north aisle, which has a tie beam roof. An ogee archway leads to the south door with an outer hood mould on corbel heads. Sill courses and hood moulds with corbel heads surround the south aisle windows. Sedilia are present.

A Victorian chancel arch springs from very high corbels, with a stone screen below. Windows are set in shafted recesses. Sedilia and piscina follow the same scheme with clustered shafts and richly moulded arches decorated with nail head ornament. In the east wall an archway leads to the remains of a spiral staircase set within the wall thickness; its original purpose is unknown, but it may have been associated with an external pulpit or sacristy.

Stained Glass and Fittings

The east window of the chancel dates to 1899 and is by Kempe, as is one south-west window. The east window of the south aisle is also by Kempe, dating to 1882, and features angels playing musical instruments in the chancel window and arch angels in the aisle window, all with peacock-feathered wings. Other chancel windows are in a medieval style of 1820 and 1825, and in a Pre-Raphaelite style of 1886 and 1924, by Powell. Two brightly coloured windows in medieval style adorn the north aisle, dating to around 1870. A hatchment is present in the south aisle, with various 18th-century war memorials in the chancel and in the spandrels of the north arcade.

The font is 13th-century, a round drum-like basin with four shafts forming angles, capped by heads of men facing east and monster-like beasts representing evil facing west. A Saxon tomb slab with interlaced decoration is situated in the north aisle. An 18th-century charity board and 19th-century commandments board are located in the tower.