Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

A parish church at Little Marcle, consecrated in 1869 and designed by J W Hugall. The building is constructed of coursed red sandstone rubble with buff-coloured stone dressings and stone and tile roofs, with verges at the east and west and at the junction of nave and chancel, each marked with crosses at the east apices.

The church comprises a three-bay nave and two-bay choir in modified 13th-century style, with a west bell turret reminiscent of Auvergnat Romanesque. The nave and choir stand partly on the west verge and partly on an attached column rising from a central west buttress. A north porch and vestry are present, with a south organ chamber.

The west front features a battered base and a pronounced moulded string course beneath two lancets, one on either side of the attached column. The column has a double capital in the form of an elaborated dosseret, and each lancet contains quatrefoil tracery supported on trefoils. An octagonal bell turret overhangs trefoiled squinches, with alternate sides open and supported by three clustered columns. The spire has semi-circular indentations and quatrefoiled openings, topped by a moulded finial and wrought iron weather vane.

The north porch is gabled with a cross and has a moulded string course rising to the impost level of a pointed entrance arch. The north windows of the nave are 2-centred with labels, each containing two trefoil-headed lights beneath a quatrefoil; the western one rests on two foils and the eastern one on one foil. The vestry is gabled to the north with a cylindrical chimney and four open lancets under a conical cap with a finial. Its west doorway has chamfered jambs with lamb's tongue stops and a shouldered head.

The east window comprises three lights, the outer ones trefoiled with quatrefoiled tracery above, positioned above a rising string course. Beneath this is the consecration stone. The organ chamber projects from the west end of the south side of the chancel and has four segmentally-headed lights beneath eaves level, each containing recessed, cusped heads. The roof has three heavy overhanging layers of stone, the bottom one linked to quoins.

The south windows of the nave are similar to those of the west front but are under chamfered labels and have neither string course nor battered plinth beneath.

Interior

The nave has an open collar roof with ashlar pieces. The chancel features an open wagon roof with scissor struts. The 2-centred chancel arch has supporting columns with waist bands and capitals related to that on the west front.

In the chancel, an aumbry with a trefoiled head is located in the north wall. Attached columns with water-lily capitals flank the jambs of the east window. A wooden bench occupies the position of sedilia beneath the south-west window. A segmental-headed recess in the south wall is obscured by a late 19th-century organ manual and pipes.

The vestry contains a piscina on the east wall with a 2-centred head and sexfoil drain on a cavetto moulded cill supported by two brackets, each pierced horizontally and laterally with a small hole. A fireplace to the cylindrical chimney has a 2-centred arch with an inset semi-circular headed cast iron grate aperture. A studded oak medieval chest with two lids and heavy strap hinges, probably from the previous parish church, is preserved here. An austere marble wall monument to Reverend John Jones, rector of the parish and benefactor of the new church, records his death in 1857.

The nave contains a pulpit with a cylindrical plan, battered base, chamfered top and curved chamfered buttresses to north and south, the latter forming a handrail alongside the steps. A moulded desk is supported by two brackets on marble wall shafts with acanthus leaves running from the brackets to abaci. The font has an octagonal basin with a moulded top edge and sunken quatrefoil side panels supported on four columns with red marble shafts, each with different capitals. A cast iron late 19th-century stove by C Portway & Son of Halstead, Essex, inscribed "The Tortoise Stove / No 4 / Slow but Sure", is located inside the west window. The interior of the west window contains a massive corbelled square section pier under the bell turret, characteristically with two layers of foliage above acanthus buds.

The present church stands approximately 50 yards north-north-east of its predecessor.