Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This is a parish church located on the north-east side of Blithbury Road in Hamstall Ridware. The building dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, though it incorporates some 12th-century fragments. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar with low-pitch leaded-covered roofs.

The church comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave with side aisles, a two-bay chancel with a north chapel, a south chapel, and a vestry.

The west tower dates to the early 14th century and rises in three stages with diagonal buttresses, a plain parapet, and a recessed spire featuring three tiers of lucarnes. The west door is pointed with an ogee-moulded surround and hood mould. The belfry openings contain two trefoil-headed lights with sunken spandrels beneath a flat arch.

The nave incorporates a 12th-century west wall. The clerestorey is late 15th century, with four-centred arch windows showing Y-tracery and concave quarter round-moulded jambs and mullions under a continuous hood mould. The north aisle dates to the 15th century and features square-headed windows of three trefoil-headed lights with ogee and concave quarter round-moulded surrounds and sunken spandrels. The north aisle continues eastward as the north chapel, which has 18th-century windows to the north and east with semi-circular arches, raised keystones, moulded architraves, and leaded glass. The north doorway displays similar details. On the east wall stands an aedicule with a bracketed open pediment commemorating Joseph Riley, who died in 1759.

The 14th-century south aisle contains square-headed windows of three trefoil-headed lights with sunken spandrels. The south chapel has a similar window of two lights in its south wall and plain rectangular loops in its south and east walls. A mid-19th-century gabled south porch, built of rock-faced ashlar with yellow dressings, has a plain tile roof with fishscale tile bend.

The chancel dates to the early 14th century and features a pointed east window of four trefoil-headed lights with cusped intersecting tracery.

Interior: The nave arcade has pointed arches of two chamfered orders on octagonal columns with moulded capitals. At the west end of the north aisle are the remains of an earlier blocked arch, probably a window. A tall pointed and chamfered tower arch rises above, with a blocked 12th-century window behind it. There is no chancel arch. The nave roof dates to the 15th century and features a moulded ridge piece, purlins, and cambered tie beams supported on brackets. The aisle roofs have moulded ridge pieces and tie beams. The north aisle roof bears the inscription "16 RO: IR 69". A two-bay chancel arcade has pointed arches on octagonal columns with moulded capitals. On the south side, a 16th-century tomb recess has been inserted. A 14th-century piscina with a trefoiled head and sunken spandrels stands in the south wall, partly destroyed by the tomb recess. In the south wall of the south chapel are the remains of a staircase that formerly led to a rood loft. At loft level is a doorway connecting the south chapel and chancel.

The fittings include a 19th-century octagonal stone font with concave diagonals, and a 19th-century wooden pulpit with panels carved with grapes and vine leaves. An early to mid-16th-century north chapel screen in Perpendicular style incorporates two medallions containing putti. A late 15th-century south chapel screen features a central Tudor arch and open traceried panels. At the east end of the south chapel is a plank and muntin partition separating it from the vestry; the muntins have roll-moulded edges and date to the 15th or 16th century.

A monument to Richard and John Cotton, dated 1502, is a chest tomb with cusped panels containing heraldic shields. The tomb sits beneath a four-centred arch recess between the chancel and south chapel.

The stained glass includes 14th-century fragments incorporated into one of the south chapel windows, three early 16th-century north aisle windows, and several windows of the late 19th and 20th centuries. At the time of a 1986 resurvey, two late 15th-century painted panels that had been incorporated into the reredos were removed for restoration work.