Church of St Michael and St Mary Magdelene

SU86NE 674-1/15/121

BRACKNELL Easthampstead Crowthorne Road (north side) Church of St Michael and St Mary Magdelene

30/03/51

GV II

Parish church. C17 brickwork in lower stage of tower. Main church 1866-7 by JW Hugall in the Early English style. Extended late C20.

MATERIALS: Main church Bath stone ashlar, with tower in brick with stone dressings. High pitched tiled roof with coped gables.

PLAN: nave, north aisle, chancel, south chapel, west tower and south porch. Extension linked to north aisle.

EXTERIOR: windows with plate tracery. Tower: three stages. Angled buttresses with stone quoins and pyramidal tops. Trefoil pierced parapet with pinnacles at angles; spirelet on south-east corner to stair turret, with pepper pot roof. Ground stage has two-light window on west with moulded string at sill and hoodmould with foliage ends. Middle stage has blank arcading of five-bays on the west and south faces. Bell stage has three-light openings with pointed obscured by C20 extension.

Chancel, north front: three lancet windows with square buttresses between two easternmost and western. Quatrefoil window over two easternmost windows. Moulded string at sill level. Chancel east front: three-light window with stiff leaf ornament at responds. Angle buttresses on each side of window. Projecting plinth with roll-moulded top. Three small blank lancets in apex of gable. Chancel, south front: two lancet windows with trefoiled heads and quatrefoil window over. Moulded string at sill level.

South chapel: gable with three-light window, small lancet in apex of gable. To right planked door with pointed head in doorway of two engaged columns with moulded heads and bases.

Nave, south side: two-light window and to left entrance porch, gabled, with engaged colonnettes with stiff-leaf capitals and moulded bases. Lancet window to left of porch.

INTERIOR: plastered. Nave has three bay arcade to north aisle, with pointed arches; columns with stiff leaf capitals and moulded bases. Four-bay roof with arch braced collars with curved struts to upper collars. Curved windbraces to two sets of trenched purlins, upper braces are straight, lower curved.

Chancel: four-bay barrel roof. Ceramic and painted reredos depicting Christ on cross. On either side, niches with trefoiled heads, depicting saints.

MONUMENTS: on south wall of south chapel wall tablet with swags, coronet on top and cherub at bottom, to Sir William Trumbull d.1716 and first wife, Elizabeth d.1704. On south wall of nave wall tablet with scrolled and foliaged sides, semicircular pedimented head with coat of arms and apron carved with foliage, in memory of William Trumbell d.1678, his two wives and two daughters. Stained glass east window by Burne-Jones, 1876, represents the Last Judgement. Window in north aisle by Kempe, 1893.