Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael

This monastic church, now serving as the parish church of Chirbury, dates principally from the late 12th century with early 13th-century aisles and a west tower of around 1300. The chancel was rebuilt in 1733, and the entire building underwent comprehensive restoration in 1871-2. The fabric consists of uncoursed and roughly coursed limestone rubble with pink sandstone ashlar dressings; the 1733 chancel is of red brick on a rubblestone plinth. The roofs are slate over the nave and aisles, with fishscale tiles to the chancel and coped verges throughout.

The original monastic church survives as the nave and aisles with the west tower; the remainder was demolished at the Dissolution. The present chancel was added in 1733. A north-east porch and vestry, dated 1848 internally, provide later additions.

The tower rises in three stages with a chamfered plinth and stepped diagonal buttresses, topped by a pyramidal roof and brass weathercock. It features an open cusped arched parapet with intermediate and corner pinnacles, rebuilt in 1854 as a copy of the existing parapet and restored with animal and human heads to the cornice below. The belfry is lit by two-light Perpendicular openings with hoodmoulds. The second stage on the north, south and west sides has small chamfered rectangular windows with round arches and hollow spandrels. Decayed 13th-century figure sculpture, probably not in its original position, adorns the string course of the first stage on the south and west. A triple-chamfered west doorway with hoodmould provides access below.

The nave's north and south walls, which probably date to the late 12th century, survive only to the level above the early 13th-century lean-to aisles. Both aisles have five bays with late 19th-century Decorated-style fenestration and a continuous hoodmould on the south. The southern aisle was partly rebuilt with flying buttresses during the 1871 restoration. The west wall of each aisle retains original paired lancets, though the northern example was entirely renewed in the late 19th century. The short one-bay chancel has a three-light east window that is probably 18th-century but was altered in 1871-2. The gabled north-east porch and vestry feature a round-arched doorway and window with raised keystones; two carved 13th-century heads have been inserted into the apexes of the gables.

The interior reveals the full architectural sophistication of the original church. The high north and south walls of the nave are pierced by five-bay arcades with circular piers and capitals. The pointed arches employ single chamfering and filleted roll-moulding. The nave displays an excellent late 15th-century arch-braced collar-beam roof in twelve bays with V-struts from the collars and three tiers of cusped windbraces, the upper two forming quatrefoil patterns. The aisles have similar roofs. An 18th-century brass chandelier hangs from the eastern tie beam of the nave roof. The chancel arch, which is tall and pointed, dates to the 1871 restoration. At the west end of the chancel stands a low late 19th-century stone screen with altar rails and a stone and mosaic reredos of around 1877 designed by Blomfield and executed by Powells.

The font is of medieval date but indeterminate period; it was probably originally a stoup, consisting of an octagonal stepped pedestal with four semi-circular lobes and angle brackets supporting a circular basin. The south aisle contains a 13th-century aumbry and piscina, with some glazed medieval floor tiles nearby, probably re-set.

The church preserves notable stained glass. The south aisle's east window contains an Annunciation by Kempe dated 1894, with two windows to the west by W. E. Tower dated 1918 and 1932 respectively. The chancel's north and south windows are by Powell, dated 1890.

The monuments include plain wall tablets in the chancel spanning the late 18th to mid-19th centuries. A momento mori tablet to Richard Loid, who died in 1589, features a skull in a circular recess above a coat-of-arms and stands to the south of the chancel arch. To the north is a tablet to Reverend Thomas Bray, founder of the S.P.C.K., erected in 1901. Wall memorials to John Davies (died 1792) and George Roberts (died 1747) flank the chancel arch. The tower contains 18th-century funerary hatchments and an elaborate wall memorial to John Prichard, who died in 1728, featuring fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, a shaped broken pediment with coat-of-arms, and skull and cross-bone motifs flanking a crudely carved angel below the inscription.

The church was the principal survival of an Augustinian priory. The priory was originally established at Snead, approximately six miles to the south-east, in the late 12th century but had moved to Chirbury before 1227. Domesday Book records two churches and a priest at Chirbury. Following the Dissolution, the chancel screen and choir stalls were removed to the church at Montgomery, and the chained book library formerly held here is now at Shrewsbury.