Church Of St Michael

Church of St. Michael

Parish church spanning the 12th to 19th centuries. The building is largely constructed in ashlar with some coursed limestone rubble, with lead and Collyweston slate roofs. It comprises a western tower, nave with clerestory, two aisles, chancel, south porch, and north chapel.

The 13th-century ashlar tower is very tall, rising in four stages with three string courses and a plain parapet with two gargoyles per face and corner pinnacles. The stepped clasping buttresses are wide for the first two stages and narrow for the upper two. The south face has a tall 13th-century lancet in the first stage under a hood-mould with small human mask stops, and a blocked circular opening with moulded surround in the second stage. The west side is largely in ashlar with an area of coursed rubble. The first string course is omitted to accommodate a 13th-century deeply splayed three-light window with Y tracery, recut in the 19th century with hood-mould and 19th-century stops. Above is a small light in the coursed rubble section. All faces have 14th-century two-light belfry openings in the fourth stage with rectilinear tracery under hood-moulds with human mask stops. The octagonal recessed spire has one set of lucarnes to the main compass faces. Inside the tower is reset 12th-century zigzag moulding in the arch over the stair doorway, and the tower chamber is stone-vaulted with a circular opening for bell ropes.

The ashlar north aisle has a 13th-century west window of two lights with Y tracery and hood-mould with human mask stops. The north side comprises four bays marked by four stepped buttresses. It has a simply splayed high plinth at cill level and a plain parapet with saddleback coping concealing a lead roof. The west bay contains a small blocked north doorway. To the east are three large 14th-century three-light windows with unusual reticulated tracery based on a quatrefoil design under hood-moulds with human mask stops. The north clerestory has a lead roof behind a panelled battlemented parapet with two rows of decoration of shields in quatrefoils beneath triskeles in circles, and four crocketed pinnacles. It has six 15th-century three-light windows with four centre arches under a continuous hood-mould.

The north chapel of two bays has a single small blocked opening to the west side. At the east end is a 17th-century four-light cavetto-moulded cross-mullioned window with a hood-mould and a scrolly coat of arms above it.

The chancel is largely a 19th-century rebuild with a Collyweston slate roof, though earlier 13th-century work survives in coursed rubble. The north side has a roll-moulded plinth and two recut 13th-century single lights with hood-moulds and label stops. The east end has a stone-coped gable with cross fleury and three 19th-century stepped lancets. The south side has three single lancets with 19th-century hood-moulds and stops. A cinquefoil-headed priest's door has been recut in the 19th century. The east end of the nave shows the line of the original roof, and the panelled parapet continues round and terminates in a cross fleury.

The south aisle has a 14th-century three-light east window with tracery as in the north aisle. On the east buttress is a gravestone decorated with flowers and an angel to Baker, died 1786. The south side is in three bays marked by stepped buttresses and has an embattled parapet. The central window is 14th-century as the north aisle; it is flanked by single three-light 14th-century windows having an interesting combination of rectilinear and curvilinear tracery. All three windows have hood-moulds and human mask label stops. The tall south porch has side stepped buttresses and an embattled parapet to the east side with gargoyle and plain parapet with cross fleury to ridge on front. The opening appears to have been precut and has hood-mould with patera stops, and above a shield with three flowers and a chevron. The west south aisle window, now half blocked, is of the 14th-century north aisle type with an ogee-headed hood-mould. The south clerestory is exactly as the north side. The interior of the porch has a stone-ribbed roof and side benches, with a scar of an earlier porch visible. The south doorway is a 14th-century double-chamfered arch with a trefoil-headed niche with ogee top and small pinnacle above.

The interior has north and south arcades of four 14th-century bays with clustered octagonal piers with circular abacii and double-chamfered arches. In the south aisle is a trefoil-headed piscina under an ogee moulding with a cross-inset basin. Two octagonal statue brackets on heads flank the east window. The north aisle has a blocked recess at the east end, and the line of an earlier aisle roof is visible. The 14th-century tower arch is double-chamfered; above it, two roof lines of earlier nave roofs can be seen. The chancel arch is 14th-century, double-splayed with circular responds and flanked by doors to the rood loft. Two statue brackets are found on the north side of the chancel. There is a three-seated sedilia with cinque-cusped heads, and on the north side an aumbry, tomb recess, and two hagioscopes into the chapel.

Fittings include a stone reredos dated 1867, a 14th-century octagonal font with traceried panels, and an early 16th-century chest with three heads in profiles set in roundels.

Monuments include a brass floor plaque in the chancel to Isaac Carter, died 1687. The north chapel contains a notable collection of monuments to the Newton family: a large tablet with convex inscription plate flanked by composite columns with floral carving and egg-and-dart surround to Abigail Newton, died 1686; a tablet with classical architectural detail and open pediment above an urn before a grey obelisk to Sir John Newton, died 1734, by Rysbrack; a standing monument to Lady Newton, 1737, by Peter Scheemakers, a black sarcophagus with putti left and right and a bust on top with a reredos background; a large white marble monument to Sir Michael Newton, died 1746, also by Scheemakers, an urn on an inscribed sarcophagus on claw feet with a reredos background with a garlanded angel over, flanked by two life-size figures—to the left a woman reading, to the right a woman holding an extinguished torch in one hand and an everlasting serpent in the other; and a simple architectural tablet with broken pediment and urn to Margaret, Countess of Coningsby, died 1761, also by Rysbrack.

Traces of red paint are visible on the chancel responds, and late 19th-century ornamental painting appears in the chancel. Stained glass includes two complete 14th-century schemes in the north aisle: the first depicts St. Edward the Martyr in coat of armour, St. George holding a long lance, and St. Edmund with arms on shield and surcoat, with the arms of Scrope and fine contemporary tracery borders and naturalistic designs; the second contains the three deacons of St. Vincent, Stephen and Laurence. Considerable fragments of 14th-century glass containing much heraldry are found elsewhere in the church. The third north aisle window is 19th-century by Wailes. The chancel windows are by Hempe and dated 1899.