Former Church of St Michael

Former Church of St Michael

This church is built from local sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and the roofs are covered in plain clay tile. The bellcote is weatherboarded and surmounted by a spirelet clad in lead. The 19th-century restoration work can be distinguished from the earlier phases by the use of pink sandstone, which contrasts with the pale buff sandstone of the earlier work.

The building is orientated east-west and has a nave and slightly narrower chancel. A chapel runs parallel to the south wall of the chancel, and the south porch is set towards the western end of the south elevation of the nave.

The nave and chancel date from the 12th century, possibly re-using some Saxon material. The south side of the nave has a Norman doorway flanked by round-arched windows remodelled in Early English style. The doorway has two orders of shafts with naive foliage designs to the capitals, and two orders of chevrons carved on the round arch, which has an unrelieved tympanum. One of the shafts to the right-hand side has been lost. The wide door is of plank and batten construction with decorative nail studding. Towards the western end of the roof the bell turret is set on the ridge, with weatherboarded sides and a short spirelet clad in lead worked in a lozenge pattern. The doorway is partly obscured by a late-14th or 15th-century timber-framed and gabled porch, which is formed from jowled uprights, tie beams and raking struts, with arch braces meeting a central cusp. The roof has purlins and short windbraces.

The south chapel and chancel form a double pile at the eastern end of the building. The early-13th-century chapel has a narrow entrance doorway with trefoil head and paired trefoil-headed lancets dating from the 19th-century restoration. The chapel has a steeply-pitched roof with high, coped verges. The east end has a lancet and a quatrefoil window above, both from the 19th century. The east end of the chancel has a Norman window remodelled as a lancet in the 13th century. The north side of the chancel has a single round-arched lancet. The north side of the nave clearly shows the arches of the two-bay arcade of the since-demolished 13th-century north aisle, with a window of paired lancets set within each archway. The west end has a single round-arched lancet window of the 12th century. Some windows have diamond-leaded panes, while another has rectangular panes with coloured margin glazing.

The interior is dominated by the Norman chancel arch, which has three orders of shafts with foliate and geometric carving to the capitals, and three orders of chevron carving to the arch. A pointed-arched recess to the right may mark the site of a stair to a former rood loft or might be associated with an earlier pulpit. The windows are deeply splayed. The west end of the nave has three massive jowled posts with arch-bracing supporting the bell-frame, which houses two bells, one dating from around 1300 and the other of 1701 by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester. The place of the fourth post is taken by the blocked arcade to the north wall from the demolished 13th-century north aisle. The arcade is expressed internally by a central circular pier with a shallow circular capital and double-chamfered arches with polygonal responds, and some foliate carving to the capitals. The main roof truss to the nave has tie beam, principal rafters, collar and a central post rising from the tie beam to the collar, with raking struts to either side. The remainder of the nave roof is of collar-rafter construction with ashlar pieces and cusped, curved windbraces. The floors are covered in terracotta tile, some with slip decoration.

The chancel has a raised dais and a wrought-iron and timber altar-rail of 19th-century date. There is a plain square aumbry in the south wall. The roof of the chancel is of simple A-frame construction apparently dating from the 19th-century restoration. High in the south wall the remnants of a former window are evident. The remainder of the south wall of the chancel has been largely removed in the creation of a wide arched opening with a very shallow, almost four-centred arch, with beaded moulding to the edges, giving access into the early-13th-century south (Cressett) chapel. The chapel has a terracotta-tiled floor and a hammer-beam roof of slender scantling dating from the 19th century.

The Cressett chapel has a wall painting on its west wall dating from around 1200. The subjects include an angel, an enthroned king, and a broad band of foliate scrollwork in reddish-brown tones. The style of the scrollwork is identical to that in the wall paintings at nearby Claverley, and it is to be supposed that they are by the same hand.

The font is Norman and tub-shaped, with cable moulding to the top rim and to the base, and the exterior is carved with tall, round-arched arcading. The pulpit, which has timber panels on a polygonal stone base, dates from the 17th century and has carved arcading and foliate motifs in carved lozenges.