Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

Anglican church built between 1856 and 1858 by architect Woodyer for the Reverend Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley. The building is constructed of coursed dressed rubble with ashlar dressings and a slate roof, partly behind plain parapets with gable-end parapets, kneelers and cross-finials.

The church comprises a four-bay clerestoried and aisled nave with a north porch, north and south transepts, and an apsidal aisled chancel with a south vestry. The nave has a continuous chamfered plinth and moulded eaves cornice. The west end is flanked by a large buttress with offsets. The west doorway has a pointed doorway of three moulded orders with nook-shafts and a hood-mould with figured stops. The hood-mould returns to the buttresses and runs beneath a cusped traceried blind arcade. Above the arcade is a 6-light window and above the window is a 2-light louvred bell-chamber opening. The clerestory has three 3-light windows with four-centred arched heads and a 2-light westernmost window. The lean-to aisles have a continuous sill string and gabled buttresses with offsets at the bay divisions and angled at the western corners. At their west ends are a 4-light window with a square head beneath a 2-light window. Both aisles have three 4-light windows with hood-moulds and foliated stops in the three easternmost bays of their side elevations. The westernmost bay of the south aisle has a pointed doorway of three moulded orders.

The north porch is situated in the westernmost bay of the north aisle. It has a gable-end parapet and gabled angle corner buttresses, a pointed doorway of three chamfered orders and one moulded order within a cusped gabled moulding on short engaged columns, and above the archway is a 3-light opening with a square head. There are 4-light square-headed openings on each side and a pointed doorway of three moulded orders within.

The transepts have diagonal corner buttresses with offsets. At their west end is a blind cusped pointed arcade with two smaller cusped lancets pierced within two of the archways. Above the arcade is a rose window and within the apex of each gable are two cusped lancets and a clockface. The side elevations have two 2-light windows with a sill string. The north transept has a small central buttress at its west end with a lean-to addition to the east of it and a pointed doorway to the west of it. The south transept has a lean-to addition along its entire south end which continues around its west side and has small cusped lancets pierced along its entire length.

The chancel roof has a plain parapet with gargoyles at the eastern angles, gabled buttresses with offsets, and blind traceried panels at the eastern angles. There are tall 12-light windows throughout with quatrefoils with circles or trefoils beneath the pointed heads and with a continuous hood-mould returning as a quatrefoil frieze between the windows. The lean-to aisles have 2-light windows in their side elevations and a single-light window at their eastern ends.

The vestry adjoins the southern aisle and has a separate gabled roof behind a parapet with a gable-end finial. There are two east-end windows and a south-side window, all of three lights and with hood-moulds with returns and a sill string.

The interior features four-bay nave arcades of two moulded orders with hood-moulds and head and foliated end stops on columns with foliated capitals. Similar archways open into the transepts and two-bay arcades into chancel chapels set beneath a single large arch. The chancel roof incorporates quadripartite timber vaults with two diaphragm arches enriched with quatrefoils and is richly painted. An ornate gabled three-bay timber reredos is crocketted and finialed with foliated detail and has flanking pinnacled flying buttresses. The aumbry has three columns supporting the base with ballflower moulding, and there is a three-bay sedilia beneath a cusped crocketted and finialed arch.

The limestone font in the north transept is raised on a three-stepped base and of polygonal plan with crisp foliated detailing. The polygonal timber font cover is remarkably tall, rising in numerous richly carved tiers. A well is situated nearby the font. The church retains all its original fittings and fixtures, including altar rails, choir stalls with quatrefoil decoration, a tall chancel screen with fine but restrained detail, richly painted and gilded organ pipes, a five-sided stone pulpit with figure reliefs, and tiled floors throughout. The stained glass is of particular interest, with the sanctuary windows executed by Hardman.