Church Of St Michael

Church of St. Michael

A church with early 13th-century origins, substantially altered and added to in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, and restored in 1860 and 1881. The building is constructed of squared coursed lias stone and limestone with sandstone dressings. The chancel and nave roofs are plain tile with decorative flashing, while the aisle roofs are lead.

The church comprises a chancel, an aisled nave and a west tower. The chancel spans two bays and is buttressed with offset diagonal buttresses. It has a coped gable to the east with a cross at the apex. The east window is restored, consisting of three lights with a cusped central light and mullions that continue to the apex of a moulded pointed arch. A 14th-century ogee-headed doorway with hood mould is set in the south wall, fitted with a 19th-century plank door. To its left is a blocked single light with cusped head and moulded surround, and to its right a restored square-headed window of two cusped lights. The north chancel wall has a corresponding blocked single light and a square-headed two-light window, partly restored.

The nave comprises four bays. The north aisle has a chamfered plinth, while the south aisle has a moulded eaves cornice and coped gables. Three 19th-century windows in the south aisle wall each contain one or two cusped lights within square heads, with hood moulds and labels. An east window in the south aisle has three cusped lights with panel tracery in the spandrels and a square head. A single ogee-headed light with pointed hood mould and labels is set in the west wall. A rebuilt porch has diagonal buttresses and a pointed-arch doorway of two orders with hood mould and labels. Single ogee-headed lights are positioned to the east and west of the porch. A restored 13th-century south door, probably re-used from the original nave, has a pointed arch of two chamfered orders, the outer order supported on detached shafts with moulded bases and capitals featuring nail-head moulding. It is fitted with a 19th-century plank door.

The north aisle contains a square-headed window of two ogee-headed lights with hood mould to the north and east, and a window of two pointed lights with Y tracery within a pointed-arch surround to the west. A 14th-century doorway is set in the north nave wall with a moulded pointed-arch surround. To its right is a restored 14th-century window of three cusped lights with trefoil tracery. A 16th-century clerestory consists of two square-headed windows to the north and three to the south, each containing two ogee-headed lights with cusped panel tracery, hood moulds and labels.

The west tower rises in three stages, with the third stage added in the 15th century. It has a chamfered plinth, offset buttresses rising to the third stage, and a hollow-moulded eaves cornice with gargoyles. The parapet is restored and embattled. A restored 14th-century west window contains two cusped lights with quatrefoil tracery and a relieving arch above. The 15th-century bell-stage windows contain two cusped lights with transoms within a segmental pointed head.

The interior retains significant medieval features. The chancel windows have moulded surrounds. In the south wall is a damaged piscina with cusped head, stone shelf and fluted basin. The south door has a chamfered rere-arch. A 19th-century chancel arch of two chamfered orders separates the chancel from the nave. The aisle arcades comprise two bays to the north and three to the south, supported on octagonal piers with moulded bases and capitals. The piers support arches of two chamfered orders. The respond to the east of the south arcade has carved foliage capitals. Nave and aisle windows throughout have chamfered rere-arches. The south aisle door has a moulded rere-arch. A piscina towards the east of the south aisle has a cusped head. A restored trefoil-headed piscina is set in the east wall of the north aisle.

A 19th-century font in the south aisle is worked in 14th-century style, with a hexagonal basin supported on a pedestal with engaged shafts at each angle. Two 15th-century benches towards the rear of the nave are carved with pinnacles and beast heads. A significant brass is mounted in the north aisle east wall, inscribed with the memorial to Richard Woddones, parson and patron and voussioner (a priest with a fixed income) of the church and parish of Ufton in Warwickshire, who died midsummer's day 1587, and his wife and their seven children: Richard, John and John, Anne, Jane, Elizabeth and Ayles. The brass depicts Richard Woddones and his wife kneeling facing one another over a prayer-desk, with their sons and daughters kneeling behind.