Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael

The Church of St Michael on the High Street at Sittingbourne has origins in the 11th century but was substantially rebuilt during a major building campaign in the 13th and 14th centuries, with further works including the completion of the west tower in the 15th century. The building was gutted by fire in July 1762 during repairs to the lead roof, though the tower survived destruction. The restoration was overseen by architect George Dance Senior and was completed in 1767, with most of the tracery removed during this work. The church underwent further Victorian restoration by Slater and Carpenter between 1859 and 1887, and was extensively restored again in the 1960s.

The church is built principally of Kentish ragstone and knapped flint with pitched tiled roofs. The plan consists of an aisled nave with a south transept, west tower, south porch, and a chancel built over a crypt with a north chapel and vestry and a south chapel.

The principal elevation faces south onto the High Street. The handsome west tower was begun in the late 13th century and completed in the 15th century. It is a robust four-storey structure with stepped angle-buttresses and an external semi-circular stair tower to the south rising to a polygonal turret above the roof parapet. The south aisle, of late 13th or early 14th century date, also has a parapet with stepped angled and intermediate buttresses. The main entrance is through a south porch with a flat roof and parapet, diagonal buttresses, a vaulted interior roof and anthropomorphic stops to the arched entrance. The transept has a very large Perpendicular south window. The flint work here takes a different form, consisting of large roughly knapped flints. The south chapel dates to around 1300 with Perpendicular alterations, and has a canopied niche on the south-east buttress recorded as housing a statue of St Mary, though this is no longer in place. Large east windows light the south chapel and chancel. Window tracery in the main was reinstated during the Victorian restorations.

The interior reveals a structure built over several centuries. The east half of the chancel appears to contain the oldest fabric, with two blind lancets originally external in the north wall, set beneath two large blank arches. Two similar but wider 13th-century arches on the south side were later pierced to provide access to the south chapel and were restored in the 19th century. The western arches on the north side of the chancel are late 13th century. Beneath the chancel lies a crypt with a quadripartite rib-vault with chamfered ribs, though the west wall blocks access to the remainder. The south chapel and its original south window date to around 1300. An impressive Perpendicular window lights the transept. The nave arcades comprise three wide arches on alternating octagonal and round piers. Corbels at the junction of the nave and south transept and aisle display a mixture of finely carved heads and cruder examples of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms. The barrel-vaulted nave roof is divided into panels by exposed ribs. The aisle roofs are boarded and divided into panels by ribs, with exposed timbers visible in the chancel roof. All nave, chancel and aisle roofs were constructed during the late 18th-century restoration after the medieval roofs were destroyed by fire, though they have undoubtedly been restored subsequently. The west tower contains ringing and bell chambers.

The reredos dates to 1860 and was designed by Slater, with a central panel decorated with an embossed Greek cross flanked by paired stone recesses with slender columns and trefoil heads framing images of angels on a gilded ground. An east window of 1860 by Clayton and Bell depicts the Last Supper. The organ was made by William Hill and Son, London, and was installed in 1881 in the north of the chancel; it was reconstructed and enlarged in 1928, replacing an organ of 1822 that stood in the west gallery. A monument in the north aisle shows a reclining shrouded female figure with a swaddled baby beneath a segmental recess; it is much worn but appears to date to the early or mid 15th century. An octagonal font, probably of early 15th-century date, is of good quality and is decorated with coats of arms. Additional stained glass includes a north window designed by Kent ecclesiologist Dr Grayling incorporating old glass, a south aisle west window of 1844 by Willement, and other windows by Clayton and Bell and Willement. First World War and Second World War memorial windows and a window commemorating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II are located in the south transept. The church has a peal of eight bells: six dating to 1687, a further late 17th-century bell recast in the late 19th century, with the remainder being late 19th century in date. The bells were re-hung in a new frame in 1896.

The churchyard wall and gate piers are also constructed of knapped flint with stone dressings. The gate piers rise from plinths, are square in section and have pyramidal caps with gables on each face.