Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels, Adbaston

A parish church of 13th and 16th-century origins, restored in 1885. Built in ashlar local red sandstone with tile roofs.

The church comprises a nave with north aisle, lower chancel, west tower, and south porch. The exterior is largely in Tudor-Gothic style. The nave is lit by two 2-light and one taller 3-light window, all square-headed with ogee-headed lights. The south doorway has a flat ogee head and opens into a pretty porch dated 1894, which is timber-framed on a dwarf stone wall with glazed sides, an ogee-headed entrance, and barge boards richly decorated with foliage. The Perpendicular 3-stage tower has angle buttresses and a restored quatrefoil band (characteristic of Staffordshire) below the embattled parapet with pinnacles. The west doorway is blocked and part glazed. A 3-light west window, a clock in the south face of the second stage, and 2-light belfry openings with louvres are features of the tower. The Perpendicular north aisle has four 3-light windows, the heads of which are carved from re-used 13th-century grave slabs. There is also a blocked doorway with similar detail to the south doorway. The bay at the east end, housing the organ, has been heightened to a second storey under a gable, though a blocked original window with tracery is visible in the east wall. In the chancel the south wall is heavily restored and includes a renewed small round-headed window, a 2-light square-headed window, and a renewed doorway. The 3-light Perpendicular east window is narrow and steeply pointed. The north side shows earlier fabric with round-headed and 2-light square-headed windows corresponding with the south side.

The interior preserves earlier Gothic work. The 3-bay nave arcade has octagonal piers and stepped round arches characteristic of 13th to 14th-century work in this part of Staffordshire, although the pier at the east end is 19th-century and supports a narrow pointed arch added to accommodate the organ. The tall tower arch has polygonal responds and is probably contemporary with the nave, as is the chancel arch with polygonal responds, double-chamfered arch, and one unrestored capital with nailhead decoration. The nave has a 4-bay roof with cambered tie-beams, turned king posts, and arched braces. The chancel has a keeled cradle roof. Walls are unplastered, and floors are 19th-century decorative tiles with parquet floors below benches.

Fixtures of note include a 19th-century font with a round bowl bearing quatrefoils in roundels and an octagonal stem. A polygonal wooden Gothic pulpit has open tracery. Benches have square ends with moulded edges and two fielded panels. An 18th-century Hanoverian Royal Arms hangs in the aisle west wall. In the base of the tower is an 18th-century commandment board with figures of Moses and Aaron, possibly once the reredos. Notable monuments include a grave slab in the chancel floor to Reginald Bradoke (died 1441) and his wife Matilda (died 1468) with incised effigies and inscription. In the nave is a wall monument to Richard Townsend (died 1729) with a stone tablet and apron, but the achievement is a painted oval board. A white marble neo-classical tablet commemorates William Collen (died 1784). An unusual scrolled 18th-century wooden board commemorates William Wakeley (died 1714 aged 125). A hatchment of Richard Whitworth (died 1748) is in the nave. The east window shows Ezekiel's Vision (circa 1885). The chancel north window and one of the nave south windows contain medieval glass fragments showing shields. A nave south window showing Christ resurrected is by H. Hughes (1872).

The churchyard contains the base of a churchyard cross, with modern shaft and head.

The church has 12th-century origins, evidenced by restored 12th-century chancel windows. In the 13th to 14th centuries the church was extended by addition of a north aisle and a west tower. The aisle features round-headed arches used elsewhere in the district, although the arcade has also been interpreted as comprising 15th-century piers and re-use of late 12th-century arches. The tower was rebuilt in the late 15th or 16th centuries, and the building was re-fenestrated at this time. The church was restored in 1885, from which period date the roofs and alterations to the nave arcade to accommodate an organ. The porch was added in 1894.