Church Of St Michael

Church of St. Michael

Parish church with a 12th-century core, extended and remodelled in the early 14th century, with a north aisle added in the 16th century. The building was restored in 1860. The nave, south aisle and chancel are constructed of random rubble with freestone dressings; the later additions are in dressed freestone blocks. Roofs are of Swithland slate with stone copings.

The church comprises a west tower, a 2-bay nave with aisles, a south porch, and a 2-bay chancel. The 3-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, a parapet string and a crenellated parapet with moulded coping stones to merlons and crenels. It is topped by a recessed octagonal spire with 2 tiers of lucarnes in the form of quatrefoils, similar to those at the Church of All Saints in Ratcliffe Culey and the Church of St. Margaret in Stoke Golding. The pointed west door is unchamfered and rather crude in appearance. Above it is an ogee-headed lancet. The second stage contains lancet lights to the south and west, while the pointed belfry openings have Y-tracery with trefoil cusping in the head of each sub-division.

The nave and aisles feature a 12th-century south door of 2 orders with scalloped capitals. The inner order of the arch is roll-moulded, but the outer roll is interrupted by triangular motifs carved on every alternate voussoir. The gabled south porch is of late 19th-century date and contains a pointed doorway with a single order of colonettes and a keel-moulded arch. The south aisle windows are 19th-century paired cinquefoil-headed lights; however, the east window of the aisle dates to circa 1300 and comprises 3 graded lights with cusped heads. A restored window of similar type stands at the west end. A 19th-century buttress is located in the centre of the aisle, with 14th-century diagonal buttresses at the corners. The square-headed east window of the north aisle has 3 lights with depressed trefoiled ogee heads. One similar window appears on the north side, with a 2-light version at the west end, all featuring sunken spandrels. The north door has a segmental pointed arch.

The chancel has 14th-century diagonal buttresses at the corners and a 19th-century buttress at the bay division. 19th-century square-headed windows to the south side each contain 2 trefoil-headed lights with hood moulds terminating in carved heads. A 19th-century pointed east window contains 3 graded lancet lights with a trefoil in each head. On the north side towards the west end is a small 12th-century window with a round arch, linked by a sill string to a similar blocked window at the east end.

Interior

The interior features a 14th-century 3-bay south arcade with pointed arches of 2 chamfered orders on octagonal columns with moulded bases and capitals. The 2-bay north arcade has taller and wider arches but is otherwise of similar character. The tower arch is smaller and springs from engaged semi-octagonal columns; the chancel arch matches the scale and character of the north arcade. A 19th-century arch-braced collar roof covers the nave, and a 19th-century scissor-braced roof covers the chancel.

Fixtures and Fittings

A 12th-century font basin, plain and cylindrical, survives in the church, alongside a 19th-century font with colonettes clustered around the pedestal and a circular basin. At the east end of the south aisle is a piscina with a lancet head, the projecting basin of which has been broken away; this part of the church probably served as a chapel. A small 14th-century piscina in the south wall of the chancel has a cusped triangular head and projecting basin. A 19th-century slender wrought iron screen separates the nave from the chancel.

Monuments

The church contains several notable monuments. In the south aisle at the east end is an alabaster chest tomb of Nicholas Purefoy (died 1545) and his wife, featuring 2 incised effigies and arcaded sides depicting weepers, executed in an early Renaissance style. In the north aisle stands a canopied chest tomb of George Purefoy (died 1628) with a recumbent effigy and Corinthian columns; above and behind the effigy are the kneeling figures of two of his three wives, with the kneeling figures of his children on the side of the chest. A tablet commemorates members of the Purefoy family whose monuments had decayed: Thomas (died 1399), William (died 1446), John (died 1447), John (died 1500), Thomas (died 1530), and Ralph (died 1550), dated to the late 16th or early 17th century. Another tablet to William and Jane Purefoy, made in 1637, displays 3 coats of arms. In the chancel is a massive double monument to Edward and George Purefoy (died 1594 and 1593 respectively), erected in 1596, featuring a 2-bay arcade on Corinthian columns with a richly carved back wall decorated with strapwork.

The east window is of late 19th-century date and depicts Jesus the Good Shepherd in the central light, with geometrical patterns elsewhere.