Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels, Bricklehampton

This is a medieval parish church substantially rebuilt and restored by Henry Woodyer between 1875 and 1877. The building is constructed in limestone laid as rubble in the nave and freestone in the chancel, with tile roofs and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The plan consists of a nave with a slightly lower and narrower chancel, an embraced west tower, a south porch, and a north vestry. The church is mainly in Decorated style. The nave features two 2-light north windows, 2-light and single-light south windows, and doorways at the west end in each wall below the tower, with a stair turret on the south side. The south wall contains the head of a former narrow lancet window. The south doorway dates from the late 12th century and has one order of nook shafts with waterleaf capitals, an arch with chevrons, a label with billet frieze, and head stops.

The timber-framed porch has open arcaded sides over rendered panels and dwarf walls, with cusped barge boards. The nave has a tall cusped west window. The tower is roughcast with angle buttresses, a pointed window in the lower stage, a corbel table, and 2-light geometrical belfry openings within the gable of a saddleback roof. The chancel has angle buttresses and three south lancet windows plus one similar north window. The renewed east window is 3-light Decorated.

The interior nave has a trussed-rafter roof with a single tie beam, incorporating some medieval timber. The tower arch has a plain chamfer with blind north and south arches. The Decorated chancel arch has one order of shafts with foliage capitals and an inner order on foliage corbels. The 3-bay arched-brace chancel roof of 1875 is boarded over the sanctuary with ribs and brattished wall plate. On the north side the arch into the organ chamber dies into the imposts, and the vestry doorway has a single order of shafts. On the south side are a cusped piscina and two stone seats. The east window has a shafted rere arch. Walls are plastered. The nave has black and red tiles with wood floors below benches; the chancel has richer patterned tiles.

The 12th-century tub font has crosses and rosettes in relief. A corbelled stoup is reset inside the south doorway. Most other furnishings date from 1875–77. Benches have square ends with moulded tops; earlier benches with panelled ends are beneath the tower. Choir stalls have moulded and shaped ends with arcading to the front tier. The communion rail is also arcaded. The plain stone reredos and pulpit are both by Woodyer. Three large wall tablets with pediments and achievements commemorate Francis Palmer (died 1715), Palmer Hatch (died 1775), and John Phillips (died 1804). Beneath the tower is a white marble tablet to Lieutenant C. Woodward (died 1859 in Punjab).

Four windows are by C.E. Kempe. The chancel north and south windows (1887) depict Archangel Michael, Saint Paul, and Saint Stephen. The west window shows Saint Andrew (1898). The east window showing Christ in Glory is by Hardman (1877). Nave windows are by William Pearce Ltd (1900–5) and Jones and Willis (1915).

The font and south doorway indicate 12th-century origins. A photograph from 1875 in the church shows the building as a 14th-century Decorated church immediately before major rebuilding. Henry Woodyer rebuilt the chancel in 1875, then restored the nave and added the porch and tower in 1876–77, with the date recorded on the rainwater heads.