Church Of St Michael

SOUTH ELMHAM, ST. MICHAEL ST. MICHAEL'S GREEN TM 38 SW

4/77 Church of St. Michael 1.9.53

GV I

Parish church. C12, C13 and later. Nave, chancel, south porch and west tower. Random flint, with freestone quoins and dressings; old render and pantiled roofs to nave and chancel, plaintiles to porch. Y-tracery windows to nave and to south side of chancel; no window to north side of chancel. 3- light east window with intersecting tracery. Pointed C13 priest's door with continuous moulding; blocked north doorway. Unbuttressed C13 west tower in 4 stages: a Y-tracery west window to the lowest stage, and plain single-light windows to all faces of the top stage, that on the east blocked; string-course between the 3rd and 4th stages; fine stepped embattled parapet with ornate flushwork panels. Early C16 timber porch, rendered externally: shallow 4- centred arch to doorway, cambered roll-moulded tie-beam and cavetto-moulded arched braces with shafts to the internal truss; 2 blocked windows with moulded jambs; roof with moulded ridge-piece and purlins and embattled wallplates. Norman south doorway with one order of colonettes, one enriched cushion capital and one volute capital, and abaci with nailhead ornament; roll-moulded arch, and an outer arch of doubled lunettes with a surround of billet moulding. Interior with the remains of an arched-braced timber chancel arch. Simple nave, with C19 boarding covering most of roof; C15 font with octagonal bowl, panels with seated lions alternating with angels bearing various shields, and a square shaft, with a seated lion at each of the chamfered-off angles. Simple panelled Jacobean pulpit; lectern made of re- used panelling. C19 benches, the first 4 pairs in an earlier style than the rest with some reused components, as are also the choir stalls in the chancel. A high recess in the south wall of the chancel; a piscina in the south-east corner with a continuous moulding round its pointed arch. Roof in 4 bays: arched brace and tie-beam construction with tie-beams removed, braces cut back, and common rafters boarded over in C19. Old brick floors throughout nave and chancel. A sundial set into the south wall of the nave has the inscriptions 'Why stand gazing' and 'Go about your business' above the dial, and 'I only tell the sunlit hours' below.

Listing NGR: TM3414783943