Church of St Michael and All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

An Anglican church built between 1875 and 1876 to designs by the architect Sir Arthur Blomfield, with construction by the contractors Messrs George Naylor of Rochester. The building is executed in Early English and Decorated Gothic style, constructed of Kentish ragstone with Bath Stone dressings and a red tile roof.

The church has a cruciform plan with a prominent north-west bell tower, a four-bay gabled nave flanked by aisles, transepts, and a chancel with a lower gabled roof. The north transept contains a Chapel of the Ascension, the south transept accommodates a vestry adjacent to a Lady Chapel, and at the west end of the nave is a lean-to baptistry. The church is sited at the corner of Tonbridge Road and St Michael's Road, oriented ENE to WSW, aligned with the street grid.

The main north front facing Tonbridge Road features a prominent crenelated tower with a turret at the south-west angle, followed by the lean-to north aisle with a gabled porch, the north transept with a canted projection at the east end, and the chancel. A ragstone plinth runs around the return walls with a cill course and band courses to the tower. The tower's north face has a pointed doorway of three moulded orders containing timber double doors with decorative wrought-iron strap hinges, flanked by stepped angle buttresses. Above the doorway is a single lancet window with trefoil tracery, then two square-headed cusped lancets beneath a clock, and higher still a two-light pointed bell chamber window with trefoiled Y-tracery. The tower top has a crenelated parapet and gargoyle rainwater spouts, with similar design on its other sides. The north aisle has three trefoil-headed windows to each of the first three bays separated by buttresses, a pointed doorway to the porch, and two small quatrefoil lights. Above runs a series of seven two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery under pointed arches to the nave clerestory. The north transept contains a three-light window with cusped tracery and quatrefoils under a two-centred arch with a hoodmould, a small round window in the gable end and a cross finial. The apse of the transept chapel has single cusped lancets, and the main chancel contains two-light pointed windows with Y-tracery to north and south.

The east elevation features a large five-light window with elaborate geometric tracery and numerous quatrefoils to the chancel and a three-light pointed window to the south transept. The south elevation is similar to the north, except for a porch with a shouldered-arch doorway next to the south transept containing four lower lancet windows and two upper lancet windows beneath a carving of St Michael and hoodmould in the gable. At the west end of the nave are two two-light windows with cusped tracery and quatrefoils under pointed arches, then a small rose window and cross finial to the gable. Beneath it, the baptistry lean-to is entered via a pointed doorway at the south and has quatrefoil windows to the west.

The interior is entered via a porch leading into the south aisle, immediately adjacent to which is a vestry and sacristy in the south transept. The former is situated beneath a Henry Willis organ built in 1887 and electrified in 1926, whilst the latter contains a trefoil-headed piscina, a fireplace and a painted panel of Christ. Both side aisles have a black and red tiled floor and exposed timber roof beams and trusses. The stained glass of the north aisle is largely devoted to Old Testament angels whilst that of the south aisle has a scheme of New Testament angels, by Hardman and Company of Birmingham and Heaton, Butler and Bayne. The aisles are separated from the nave by four pointed arches resting on pillars formed of clusters of engaged columns. Both the nave and aisles contain timber pews, and the nave has an open arched-braced roof with collar ties and rafter ties, supported on corbels between the clerestory windows. At the west end of the nave are stained glass windows depicting four miracle stories from the gospels, installed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1898.

The baptistry is entered through a paired arcade of three pointed arches resting on columns and contains an octagonal stone font with a stem formed of engaged columns with foliage capitals and a bowl carved with fishnet panels. The stained glass windows in this part depict Noah's ark, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, the Baptism of Christ and His ministry to children.

The chancel is separated from the nave by a large chamfered pointed arch, above which is a painting of the Crucifixion by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Immediately in front stands a 1970s platform with a wrought-iron and timber rail, a timber altar and a stone pulpit carved with pierced trefoil tracery panels. Ashburton marble steps lead up into the chancel past a low wooden Gothic screen. The chancel contains polychromatic tiling, wooden choir stalls, a pointed arch sedilia and gabled aumbry, as well as an elaborate oak reredos featuring panels painted with the apostles and saints against a gold backdrop. The walls of the chancel previously had a painted scheme of 1890 comprising palm branches, pomegranate plants and angels but this was painted over in the 1960s, and the wagon roof was also boarded over with panels painted to a Campbell Smith scheme. The stained glass of the east window depicts Christ in Majesty whilst those to the sides depict angels—the archangel Michael to the south and Gabriel and Raphael to the north—all installed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1881.

The Chapel of the Ascension in the north transept is separated from the chancel by a wooden screen of three bays with elaborate pierced curvilinear tracery and a pierced cornice. It contains two medieval misericord seats originally from St Frideswide's chapel at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, a stone piscina and a wooden altar. The north memorial window of 1921 depicts the ascended Christ.

The church tower contains a turret with a newel staircase rising to the ringing chamber, a chamber containing a clock of 1877 by T Cooke and Sons of York, and the belfry.