Church of Saint Michael and All Angels

Church of Saint Michael and All Angels

A small Anglican church dedicated to St Michael and All Angels at Brownsover. Originally constructed in the 13th century as a chapel of ease to the nearby parish of Clifton upon Dunsmore, the building was largely rebuilt in 1876–7 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in a sympathetic Early English style.

The church is built from cream-coloured coursed stone rubble with reddish-brown freestone dressings. The roof is covered in plain clay tiles with pierced ridge tiles and decorated cast iron rainwater goods of the 19th century.

The plan comprises a simple nave and chancel, with a small later lean-to addition in the north-east corner between the nave and chancel. The church is entered from the west through a small pointed-arched moulded doorway with drip mould, fitted with a 19th-century door bearing elaborate hinges. The doorway is flanked by two-light pointed-arched windows with simple Y-tracery without cusping, each having drip moulds with male and female heads as stops.

The nave features diagonal buttresses to the west end, a moulded plinth and string course, and a high gable with a gabled bracket for the bell set high in the gable. The west end has two high-set single-light windows with cinquefoil heads. Windows to the north and south sides of the nave are similar to those flanking the doorway; those to the north apparently date from the 13th century. An early lancet survives in the east wall of the nave. The chancel has diagonal buttresses, sprocketted eaves, paired lancets to the north and south, and a single 13th-century lancet to the south. The east window is of three cusped lights with a triangular head, dating from the 15th century.

The interior is largely plastered and whitewashed. The chancel arch appears to date from the 13th or 14th century and is two-centred, with a half-round moulding to one side and a chamfer to the other. Medieval stonework survives in the south wall, which contains a small shallow piscina with its bowl and drain intact. The nave and chancel have 19th-century polychrome floor tiles. The roof structure dates from the 19th century, springing from wooden corbels with cambered tie beams, curved braces to a collar beam, and king posts.

The 13th-century circular font has a small tub bowl with a recessed concave moulding, a tall banded stem, and a moulded base. The church contains a variety of timber fittings of various dates and origins. A fine rectangular screen is made up of elements dating from the 15th century and later. A Flemish pulpit of the 18th century is set on the east wall of the nave, with 17th-century wall panelling to the rear. A German organ in a richly decorated case of the Restoration period, brought from St John's College, Cambridge in the late 19th century, is housed in the chancel. The east window contains stained glass dating from the early 20th century, dedicated to Lawrence Sheriff, the founder of Rugby School. All other windows have plain glass.

Additional windows were added to the west end later in the 13th century, and others in the 14th and 15th centuries. Buttressing and a west porch were added after the Reformation. The church was comprehensively restored in 1876–7 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, commissioned by Allesley Boughton-Leigh of nearby Brownsover Hall. New stained glass was inserted in the east window in the early 20th century. The church is now redundant and vested in the Churches Conservation Trust; it remains consecrated and is used for occasional worship.