Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

Parish church, dating from the late 12th or early 13th century, restored in 1864–66 by the Reverend E. Donald Carr under the supervision of William Hill of Smethcott. The building is constructed of uncoursed and roughly coursed grey and brown sandstone rubble with grey sandstone ashlar dressings, and has a sandstone slate roof.

The church comprises a nave and chancel with a lower chancel roof, a south porch, south transept, north vestry, and a western bellcote dating from circa 1864–66. The bellcote is timber-framed with a square plan, featuring paired pointed-arched openings, a pyramidal stone slate cap, and a lead spirelet with weathervane; a cross crowns the eastern gable end.

The south side displays a 13th-century chamfered lancet to the left and a pair of chamfered 19th-century lancets off-centre to the right. The south transept features paired chamfered lancets and a chamfered circular window in the gable above. A 13th-century chamfered-arched doorway off-centre to the left is fitted with a 19th-century nail-studded boarded door with wrought-iron strap hinges. The doorway is sheltered by a timber-framed gabled porch with cusped braces, brackets supporting wall plates, four-light side windows, and a pair of wooden gates.

The north side includes a pair of chamfered lancets to the left and a gabled vestry to the right. The vestry front has a pair of chamfered lancets with a carved segmental tympanum reset in the wall above, a boarded door with chamfered reveals in the left-hand return front, and a chimney stack with a square base, chamfered octagonal shaft, and a cap with trefoiled gables to each face.

The west end displays 19th-century paired chamfered lancets with a chamfered circular window above.

The chancel has a possibly 17th-century buttress to the south with two offsets. The south side includes a 13th-century chamfered lancet to the right and a round-arched priest's doorway to the left, fitted with a 19th-century nail-studded boarded door. The north side has a restored 13th-century chamfered lancet to the left and 19th-century paired chamfered lancets to the right. The east end, with some dressed grey sandstone blocks from cill level upward, features 19th-century stepped triple chamfered lancets.

The interior contains a 19th-century trussed-rafter nave roof with braced collars and a moulded cornice on brackets, said to incorporate remains of a medieval roof. A 19th-century timber-framed screen marks off a baptistery at the west end. A circa 1864–66 hammer-beam roof covers the chancel, probably by William Hill, featuring pendants and traceried panels; a screen divides the nave and chancel roofs.

The furnishings include many pieces by William Hill: a hexagonal wooden pulpit with arcading consisting of triple shafts and round arches, a carved frieze, and stairs with a barleysugar post; a carved wooden lectern; elaborately carved wooden altar rails with pierced spandrels; a vicar's seat and desk. Other fittings include a circa 1700 communion table and 19th-century pews incorporating parts of former 18th-century box pews, with a former family pew in the transept. The baptistery, formed at the west end in the 19th century, has benches on three sides and a font consisting of a low 12th-century basin font and a taller 12th-century font-standing within, topped with a 19th-century wooden cover; one font is said to have come from the former chapel at Womerton.

A carved tablet on the right-hand splay of the baptistery south window is inscribed: "(h)eare lieth THE BODY/(of) Thomas WILDINGS/WHO DEPARTED THIS/LIFE APRIL THE 21/1681)". An aumbry is located in the chancel.

The stained glass in the west window is by David Evans of Shrewsbury; the east window dates from 1906 and was created in memory of E. D. Carr.

The church is first mentioned in records in 1272. Many of the fittings were funded by proceeds from a pamphlet written by the Reverend E. D. Carr describing his experiences on the night of 29 January 1865, when he was lost in a snow storm on the Long Mynd whilst returning from the church at Ratlinghope. E. D. Carr was responsible for other village improvements, including the rebuilding of the rectory and the laying out of the green. The church retains substantial medieval fabric and was sympathetically restored in the 19th century, with the massing of forms being particularly successful when viewed from the south-east.