St Michael'S Church Of The Open University

St Michael's Church, originally a parish church and now the Open University church and recital room, largely dates to the 14th century, with a slightly later south porch and an early 16th-century roof over the nave. It was restored in 1861. The church is constructed primarily of rubble limestone, with some greensand stone detailing.

The tower has two stages with greensand-stone quoins, diagonal buttresses, and a battlemented parapet. The nave parapet sits over a string course featuring corbel heads, and the nave and chancel are buttressed between bays. All windows feature good and varied curvilinear tracery. The chancel incorporates restored sedilia and a priest's door on the south wall. The nave features four bays, a piscina at the east end of the south wall, and a tall, plain tower arch. A staircase leading to a rood-loft is located north of the chancel arch. The 14th-century octagonal font has been restored. Hatchments are displayed in the nave.

A notable wall monument on the north wall of the chancel commemorates Bartholomew Beale, who died in 1660, and Katherine Beale, who died in 1667. The monument features an inscription panel flanked by black Corinthian columns with white caps and bases, a broken segmental pediment with a central cartouche of arms, and carved scroll brackets supporting angels’ heads. It was erected in 1672 by their sons, Charles and Henry, Charles being the husband of the painter Mary Beale, who died in 1697. An incised brass memorial to Elizabeth Pyxe, dated 1617, is located adjacent to the Beale monument. A late 18th- or early 19th-century monument to members of the Pinfold family is on the south wall of the nave, depicting Sir Thomas Pinfold, Knight, LL.D., Kings Advocate, Chancellor of Peterborough, who died in 1701, and attributed to Nollekens.