Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels, Stanton Long

A parish church mainly of the 13th century, with a 17th-century porch, restored in 1842, and restored more extensively with the addition of a north vestry by S. Pountney Smith between 1869 and 1871. The church contains glass by Done & Davies and a reredos of 1888 by F.R. Kempson.

The church is constructed of coursed rubble sandstone under tile roofs. The plan consists of a nave with a lower and narrower chancel, a west porch, north vestry, and west belfry.

The church is largely in simple Decorated style. The south wall of the nave has cusped pointed windows at the right and left ends (the right-hand window being lower and lighting a side altar) and a 2-light window with Y-tracery to the right of the porch. The south doorway is tall and pointed with a single chamfer and moulded capitals. The door itself survives with original ironwork comprising strap hinges bisected by large C-scrolls and an enriched horizontal bar, dating to the late 12th or early 13th century. The porch side walls are 19th-century stone, but the front preserves jointed crucks from the original timber-framed structure. The west front has a single pointed window above a shallow buttress. The north side features two 2-light windows inserted in 1869. The 2-light Decorated east window of the chancel is also of this date. In the chancel south wall is a blocked priest's door with a single order of chamfer, with a low cusped pointed window to its left and a 2-light Decorated window to its right. The north side of the chancel has a single pointed window and the vestry, which stands under an outshut roof. The vestry has a pointed east doorway with boarded door and two small trefoil windows in the north wall. The large square timber-framed belfry is weatherboarded under a pyramidal roof with finial, and has louvres and round clock faces of 1927 to the north and south sides.

Inside, the nave has a late medieval 4-bay arched-brace roof with a single tier of windbraces. In the south-east of the nave is a cusped piscina of late 13th or early 14th-century date. The Decorated chancel arch has round responds, foliage capitals, and a double-chamfered arch. The chancel has a late medieval 3-bay arched-brace roof incorporating a single tier of windbraces, their only ornamentation being central rosette bosses. In the chancel south wall is a tomb recess of around 1300 with a segmental pointed arch and hood mould. The plain segmental arch of a former piscina survives in the south wall, and a cusped aumbry is in the north wall. The 19th-century stone reredos has sculptures of Christ and Saints Peter and Paul framed by cusped arches with gabled hoods, flanked by octagonal piers surmounted by sculpted angels, and then by two floor-length blind arches. The interior walls are stripped of plaster. The plain floor tiles in the nave were installed in 1954. The chancel has red and black tiles, with decorative and encaustic tiles in the sanctuary of 1888. Three grave slabs have been laid into the chancel floor, two dated 1705 and 1720 respectively. The porch also has 19th-century floor tiles.

The font has a round bowl of tooled freestone on an octagonal base, described as new in 1862. The wooden 19th-century polygonal pulpit has Gothic arcading. Pews and choir stalls have simple shaped ends. The communion rails of 1888 are wooden, with bracketed uprights incorporating pierced quatrefoils. Few memorials survive. Above the south door is a simple engraved tablet commemorating Richard Hotchkis, who died in 1693. On the north wall of the chancel is a marble war memorial tablet to the 1914–18 and 1939–45 wars. The chancel windows contain stained glass: the east window shows the crucifixion and the Sermon on the Mount, dated 1869 by Done & Davies of Shrewsbury. Other windows are by John Davies, with the south window showing the baptism of Christ and Christ carrying the cross (1879) and the north window showing St Paul (after 1893).

A parish church was established at Stanton Long by around 1200, originally comprising only a nave and chancel. Alterations later in the 13th century and beginning of the 14th century included new windows in the nave, partly to light a new side chapel, and rebuilding the south chancel wall, which incorporates a piscina and tomb recess of around 1300. The roofs are late medieval. The belfry and south porch were probably added in the 16th or 17th century. The bell turret is mentioned in 1736, and in 1862 the porch was described as built of wood and plaster. The church was restored in 1842, but its present Decorated character derives mainly from restoration in 1869–71 by S. Pountney Smith, architect of Shrewsbury. He rebuilt the side walls of the porch, the chancel east wall, and the nave north wall, and inserted the chancel arch and the present windows. The north vestry was added in 1871. The sanctuary was enriched in 1888, chiefly by a reredos designed by F.R. Kempson, with figures sculpted by Robert Clarke of Hereford.