Church of St Michael and remains of churchyard cross

Church of St Michael and remains of churchyard cross, High Ercall

This is a late 12th-century church that was repaired in 1658 and restored in 1865 by G.E. Street. It is built in sandstone ashlar with a tiled roof and oak roof structure. The tower is principally grey sandstone, while the other parts of the church are a mixture of red and grey sandstone.

The church has a three-bay nave with north and south aisles separated by arcades, and a west tower. To the east is a chancel with a chapel to the north. The vestry on the south side of the chancel and the south porch are of 1865.

The mainly perpendicular square 12th-century tower has an embattled parapet and a low spirelet and vane. There are angle buttresses with offsets. Below the parapet is a curved stone cornice with gargoyles and figureheads, underneath which is a quatrefoil frieze. There are three two-light bell openings with hood moulds and quatrefoils in the tracery. The north, west and south elevations have a clock positioned at differing heights. The west face has a perpendicular window at ground floor level and the north face has a stair turret. The plinth is moulded.

The aisled nave extends from the tower under a single steep roof. Both elevations have perpendicular straight-headed three-light windows with a substantial buttress between them. There is an oak door to the north and a 19th-century south porch. The chapel adjoining the north aisle is set forward with a perpendicular straight-headed three-light window and a three-light perpendicular east window. The adjoining chancel has a three-light east window with reticulated tracery. The south elevation of the chancel has a perpendicular straight-headed three-light window and a 19th-century vestry attached.

Interior

The central three-bay nave has transitional north and south arcades with circular piers, square capitals with volutes, leaves and rams' heads. The bases of the columns have a variety of mouldings. There are pointed double-chamfered arcade arches. At the west end is a triple-chamfered tower arch with semi-circular responds and water-leaf capitals. At the east end, the double-chamfered chancel arch has restored capitals. The two-bay chapel and chancel arcade has hollow-chamfered arches and octagonal piers. The nave, north chapel and chancel each have a double hammerbeam roof, probably of late 17th-century date.

Other notable interior features include a reset early-Norman tympanum in the north wall of the nave; an early 14th-century monument under the chapel arch comprising a cross-legged knight with shield and a lion at the feet; 19th-century furnishings including pews; late 19th and early 20th-century stained glass windows, notably in the south arcade by Heaton, Butler and Bayne; and a bronze sundial of 1718 with two 12-hour series in Roman numerals inscribed "Thomas Ward fecit 1718", set in an early stone stoup that stands on a later pedestal in the west corner of the north aisle.

The churchyard to the south of the church contains some 18th and early 19th-century tomb chests and 18th-century headstones. The remains of an early-medieval stone churchyard cross stands in the south of the churchyard. The shaft has been truncated and a vertical hollow has been cut in the cross-base, which was used in the medieval period to hold a chalice during Eucharist.

History

A Saxon church and churchyard may have stood on this site, although no church was recorded at Domesday. St Michael's Church dates to the late 12th century and underwent notable restoration in the 17th century following damage during the English Civil War. The church was further restored in 1865 by George Edmund Street, the notable High Victorian architect. Minor additions and modifications, including the insertion of a bell ringing platform in the tower, took place in the 20th century. In 1998, a Grade II-designated sundial plate was removed from the churchyard and placed in the church, newly restored and attached to a stoup and stone pedestal. The stoup is thought to have originally belonged to the church but was recovered from nearby Shirlowe in 1890 and returned to St Michael's.