Church Of St Michael'S

The Church of St Michael's is a large medieval parish church with a complex building history spanning nearly a millennium. The nave and western part of the chancel date from the 11th century. North and south aisles were added in the 12th century. The south chapel and nave clerestory were built in the early 13th century, and the chancel and north aisle were rebuilt around 1340. A west tower, probably 13th-century in origin, was remodelled in the late 15th or early 16th century but was later demolished. The south aisle was also demolished at an unknown date.

The church underwent restoration by George Gilbert Scott in 1866, when he added the south porch. In the late 1890s, Lord Grimthorpe undertook extensive remodelling, building a south vestry on the site of the former south aisle, demolishing the west end of the church and the west tower, lengthening the nave, and constructing a new northwest tower to his own designs. Further restoration occurred in 1934-5 by J C Rogers, who added a northeast vestry in 1938.

Materials and Construction

The church is built of flint and Roman brick with stone dressings. The gables of the south chapel feature 19th-century timber framing.

Plan

The church comprises a chancel, nave with north aisle and northwest tower, south lady chapel, south porch and southwest vestry, and northeast vestry.

Exterior

The church presents a long, irregular silhouette dominated by the south chapel and northwest tower. The chancel has a Decorated-style east window with reticulated tracery. In the north chancel wall, a heavily restored 13th-century lancet is visible above the low northeast vestry. The south wall of the chancel contains a 14th-century and a 15th-century window; beneath the 14th-century window is a contemporary external tomb recess, with a small low-side window or former squint adjacent to it.

The south side is dominated by the large southeast chapel. The chapel east wall has two tall round-headed 13th-century windows with a circular window, possibly 17th-century, between them. Above these windows, the chapel east gable is tile-hung. The chapel south wall has another similar but shorter 13th-century lancet, flanked by two 15th-century windows. The south vestry externally resembles an aisle, with trefoiled Early English-style windows. The 19th-century south porch is distinguished by a cross gable and has an outer opening in a 13th-century style. The inner opening is genuinely 13th-century with two continuous chamfered orders, set within the blocking of one of the 12th-century south arcade arches.

The Roman brick quoining of the former northeast corner of the nave is visible in the east wall of the north aisle above the northeast vestry. The nave clerestory is 13th-century with six windows on each side, originally all lancets, though three on the north were replaced with two-light openings with square heads in the 15th century. There are no parapets to the nave or aisles. The east window of the north aisle is probably 12th-century with a round head, barely visible above the vestry. Four north windows include three from the 15th century and one mid-14th-century window with delicate and unusual flowing tracery.

Lord Grimthorpe's embattled, four-stage northwest tower is in a fanciful, largely Early English Gothic style with pairs of lancets in the bell stage and foiled pentagons in the stage below. His nave west end features a large, late Perpendicular-style west window.

Interior

The interior is plastered and painted throughout. The chancel arch has two chamfered orders dying into the wall with no responds, probably dating to the late 14th century. An 11th-century door with Roman brick jambs in the chancel north wall, formerly blocked, was reopened in 1938 to provide access to the northeast vestry. Also in the north wall of the chancel near the altar is an early 17th-century arched recess, probably created from a former window, housing the tomb of Sir Francis Bacon, who died in 1626. The chancel has some 19th-century decorative painting on the jambs of the south window.

The north nave arcade has three irregularly spaced bays with plain, wide round arches with chamfered imposts. The east respond is very long and contains a small 15th-century door to the north aisle. The south arcade is similar but had four bays. Only the easternmost bay is fully intact and now opens to the 13th-century south chapel. The second was underbuilt in the 13th century and has a smaller, 13th-century arch, rebated for a door, to the south chapel. The third bay was also underbuilt in the 13th century when an opening, now a doorway to the south porch, was inserted, and the fourth is blocked except for a 19th-century door to the vestry.

Above the arcades on both sides are the remains of blocked pre-Conquest windows with round heads and jambs in Roman brick, and above those, the clerestory. The west end of the north aisle has a 19th-century door to the tower. A 15th-century rood stair stands at the junction between the south chapel and the chancel. In the south chapel, the 13th-century windows have attached shafts on the jambs. The central window in the chapel east wall, a roundel, is set within a large blind arch, wider than the rear arches of the adjacent lancets, and probably replaced a former lancet or pair of lancets. In the west wall of the chancel is an unusual, low, round opening into the porch.

Principal Fixtures

The church contains two 15th-century piscinas, one in the chancel and the other in the south chapel. The 15th-century octagonal font has quatrefoils on the bowl. Part of a late 15th-century timber tympanum survives with part of a Doom painting showing the newly awakened dead rising from their coffins. Most of the rest of the Doom on the east wall of the nave was destroyed during the 19th-century restoration, but traces of paint survive on the splay of the southeast nave window and on the nave roof. Late 15th- or early 16th-century linenfold panelling is worked into the fronts of the 19th-century nave benches. The 15th-century south door retains original wrought iron strapwork hinges.

An imposing, heavily carved late Elizabethan or early Jacobean hexagonal pulpit survives complete with its tester, bookboard and hourglass. The fine altar table is probably contemporary, and there are matching chairs. The Royal Arms date to 1660. The church also contains some 19th- and 20th-century glass.

The late 15th-century nave roof is low-pitched with moulded wall plates, short curved braces and beams on carved stone corbels. Open tracery fills the spandrels between the braces and the tie beams. The south chapel roof is of uncertain, possibly 17th-century, date and is very plain with posts on wooden corbels, plain crown posts and queen struts. The timber framing in the chapel east gable is exposed internally.

Monuments

The church houses several very good brasses, including John Pecock and his wife, around 1330; a 14th-century floriated cross with a figure of a civilian (the inscription lost); a knight around 1400; and an inscription for Henry Gape, who died in 1558, and his wife.

Of greatest note is the widely known monument to Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor, who died in 1626. This excellent, life-sized seated figure in a relaxed pose (comparable to that of Dean Boys at Canterbury Cathedral) is said in its inscription to represent him sitting in life, set within a wall recess. Its sculptor is unknown, but its singularity and historic importance are each high; it is possibly by Nicholas Stone.

A number of 17th- and 18th-century ledger slabs lie in the floor. Outside, a very fine 14th-century ogee cusped tomb recess on the exterior of the chancel south wall contains a coffin lid, probably not related, set within it.

History

The church of St Michael was founded in the mid-10th century by Wulfsin, abbot of St Albans, who also founded St Stephen's and St Peter's at the same time. The extensive use of Roman brick and the simple character of the early work at St Michael's point to an early origin for the building, although the walls are unusually thick for an Anglo-Saxon church, and it is possible that the present building is a rebuilding of the late 11th century. The first church would have consisted of a small chancel and a nave approximately 60 feet long. It was greatly extended in the late 12th century with the addition of north and south aisles, and in the early 13th century when a clerestory and southeast Lady chapel were built.

The former west tower was probably also 13th-century in origin and had an embattled parapet and a polygonal southeast stair turret taller than the tower. It was unbuttressed but had substantial projections up to the level of the nave roof to north and south. The west window was probably early 16th-century with a depressed head and three cusped lights. The late 15th- or early 16th-century bell openings were of paired, cinquefoiled lights in a square surround. Although usually dated to the 15th century, during its demolition in 1896, remains of an older tower are said to have been discovered within it, and it may have been 13th-century in origin.

Structural concerns about the stability of the south aisle led to the south arcade being partially underbuilt in the 13th century. Work in the 14th century included enlarging the chancel arch, presumably originally only a small, narrow arch. In the 15th century, a number of anchorites (hermits) were associated with the church; their presence may explain certain external features like the small squint in the south chancel wall. There was significant work to the church in the 15th century, including the installation of a new rood screen, from which the rood stair survives, with an associated doom that also survives in part. Other work included new windows, a new nave roof, and the installation of new furnishings including the font.

The church was refurnished in the late 16th or early 17th century, and the pulpit and altar table are of this period. The southeast chapel east wall may have been rebuilt in the early 17th century. A west gallery, removed during the restorations by Scott in 1866, apparently dated to the late 17th century. Also removed in 1866 were box pews, including three with their own fireplaces. Scott rebuilt the chancel east wall and east window, reroofed the chancel, rebuilt the southeast chapel buttresses, and repaired the (now demolished) west tower.

The most significant changes to the church came at the very end of the 19th century, an exceptionally late date for drastic demolition and alteration of medieval fabric. The instigator, designer and patron was Lord Grimthorpe (Edward Beckett, 1816-1905), who was a wealthy barrister, ecclesiastical controversialist, and amateur architect, among other things. Described by one contemporary as a man of "arrogance and bile", he is best known for his controversial restoration and alteration at his own expense of St Albans Cathedral. His work at St Michael's included the complete remodelling of the western part of the nave, including the demolition of the west tower and its rebuilding at the northwest corner of the church to his own designs. There was further restoration including the rebuilding of the western part of the north arcade in 1935, and the northeast vestry was added in 1938.