Church Of Saint Michael And All Angels

Church of Saint Michael and All Angels

This church was built in 1908–9 to designs by the London architect Philip Mainwaring Johnston. It stands on a new site given by Earl Brownlow, replacing a small iron chapel-of-ease that had previously served the Sunnyside area, which was ecclesiastically part of Northchurch parish. The church was erected from locally subscribed funds, with additional support from the Incorporated Church Building Society. The chancel and its fittings were given by Sir Richard Cooper, Bart, in memory of his late brother Herbert. George K. Hext, treasurer of the building fund, paid for the bell-turret. The foundation stone was laid on 25 July 1908 and the church was consecrated on 30 June 1909. The total cost was between £3,000 and £4,000, and the completed building could accommodate over 300 people.

The exterior is executed in a plain 13th-century Gothic style. The materials consist of flint facing to concrete walls with an inner brick skin, with Totternhoe stone for internal dressings and Monk's Park (Bath) and Tisbury stone used for some external and internal dressings. The roof is covered in brown clay tiles, with a boarded and shingled bell-turret.

The plan comprises a nave, south aisle and porch, chancel, and vestry. Parish rooms of the circa 1980s have been added to the north side. The principal elevation faces south and is dominated by a large catslide roof covering both nave and aisle. The chancel is separately articulated beneath a lower roof than the nave. Near the west end stands a timber porch on low side walls. A bell-turret straddles the ridge of the nave roof near the west end and features boarded sides and a shingled chamfered spire. The aisle wall is low and unbuttressed, containing grouped lancet windows of two and three lights. The chancel south wall has three taller single lancets. The east wall contains three graded lancets, with a pair of equal-height lancets and a foiled circular window in the gable wall.

The interior is plastered and painted white throughout, including what would originally have been exposed stonework features such as the arcade piers. The chancel arch is chamfered and rises from moulded corbels. Between the nave and south aisle stands a four-bay arcade with standard 13th-century details: double-chamfered arches on circular piers with moulded capitals. The nave roof is constructed as an A-frame with ashlar pieces, a collar, and three large tie-beams. The westernmost beam supports arched braces for the bellcote. The aisle roof has ashlar pieces and a curved strut between the back of the arcade and the rafters. The chancel roof is arch-braced with horizontal boarding between the rafters. At the east end, the triple-light window features mouldings and shafts.

The encaustic tiles in the chancel are the work of W Godwin and Son of Lugwardine, Herefordshire. The chancel contains a low double sedilia with a marble shaft and trefoiled heads; the piscina is similarly treated. The font is a conventional octagonal piece. Some 19th-century benches survive with shouldered ends and open backs, though much of the seating dates from the 1960s to 1980s. The nave and aisle are floored with wooden blocks.

The architect, Philip Mainwaring Johnston (1865–1936), was articled to John Belcher in 1881–6 before establishing his own London practice.