Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This parish church at Kingstone dates from the 12th century, with alterations and extensions dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. The building was substantially rebuilt in the mid-18th century and underwent restoration work in both 1842 and 1889. It is constructed of sandstone rubble with sandstone dressings, and has stone slate and tiled roofs.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, north-west tower, north aisle, north chapel and south porch. The west tower rises through three uninterrupted stages. It features a restored embattled parapet with a ball-flower cornice below, and the top stage has 2-light ogeed bell-openings with quatrefoil tracery. The second stage contains one central lancet on both the north and west faces. The ground floor stage on the west side has a trefoil-headed single-light window with a label. The north doorway into the tower has a 2-centred head with a label featuring head stops depicting a priest on the left and a king on the right. The door is fitted with elaborate strap hinges.

The north aisle contains two restored windows, each with two trefoil-headed lights and quatrefoil tracery. The north chapel has two early 13th-century lancets in the north wall and a 2-light window with trefoils and ogees to each head in the east wall. The chancel contains a restored 3-light 19th-century east window. The south wall of the chancel has a single trefoiled-headed light, and to its west is a window with two trefoil-headed lights. Between these two windows is a plaque inscribed "1762".

The nave has two 2-light traceried windows with trefoiled lights to the left of the porch. To the right of the porch is a similar but plainer window lacking tracery but with an incised sun-dial beneath its label. The west window has three stepped lights with restored flowing tracery. Beneath it, the doorway has a 2-centred head with chamfered and moulded jambs. The south porch is likely early 20th-century and timber-framed. The south doorway dates to the mid-12th century, featuring a round head and projecting chamfered imposts, with decorative strap hinges on the door.

The interior retains a largely unrestored wagon roof to the nave, dating possibly to the 14th or 15th century. This roof has received a central suspended collar purlin and brattished wall-plates during one of the restoration campaigns. The chancel roof is similar but has been restored. The north aisle has a restored curved braced collar-truss roof with a central purlin, while the north chapel has a similar roof that remains largely unrestored.

Three bays of arcade separate the nave from the north aisle, continuing in two further bays beyond the chancel arch to divide the chancel from the north chapel. The nave arcade features double chamfered 2-centred arches supported on circular piers with trumpet capitals and water-holding bases. The eastern pier beneath the chancel arch has trefoiled decoration to its capital and a carved bust on its west side. The chancel arcade also displays a carved bust on the west side of the central pier and on the east respond. The chancel arch is double chamfered and supported on its north side by a foliated capital and on its south side by two corbels, one beneath the other. The tower arch is 2-centred with double chamfers, a label and semi-octagonal responds.

A piscina in the north chapel has a chamfered 2-centred head with a circular drain. The north wall of the north aisle contains a recess with a chamfered 2-centred head, probably originally for a tomb. The font consists of a plain bulbous marble bowl supported on a moulded stem. A chest, possibly dating to the 13th century and approximately 8½ feet long, stands at the east end of the nave and north aisle. It is a dug-out chest with two unequal lids, decorative reinforcements and strap hinges.

The church contains several wall monuments. Richard Russell, who died in 1717, is commemorated by a monument on the east side of the south-east pier of the tower in the form of an aedicule. John Parry, died 1689, has a monument consisting of a tapered slab with a foliated cross placed against the north wall of the north aisle. Mary Parry, died 1780, is memorialised by a Neo-Classical white oval plaque with an urn on a brown marble ground, donated by Charles Morgan of Tredegar and positioned on the north wall of the north chapel. Adjacent to this is a monument to Thomas Parry, died 1774, by T Symonds of Hereford, erected by Mary Parry, his widow. The north wall of the chancel contains a monument for Armclah Russell, dated 1773, also by Symonds. Several floor slabs date from the late 17th to early 19th centuries.

The communion table in the north chapel dates to the late 17th or early 18th century and features turned legs and moulded rails. The church contains stained glass of late 19th-century date. The east window of the chancel, executed for Archdeacon Wetherall at the bequest of his widow, depicts the Parable of the Lost Sheep. The east window of the south wall shows St Michael. The adjacent window to the west portrays the Holy Family and is signed by Alfred D Hemmiraq, dated 1894.

A bell-ringing platform was completed in 1985 and is accompanied by a plaque in the tower commemorating a peal of 5040 doubles rung by the Hereford Diocesan Guild of Bell Ringers for the wedding of HRH Princess Margaret and Mr Anthony Armstrong-Jones on Friday 6 May 1960, completed in two hours fifty minutes. The tower also contains a watercolour perspective of the proposed restoration, captioned "Church of St Michael: Kingstone: Hereford North East View as Restored. Nockalls: J: Cottingham: Architect: London: 1848".