Church of St Michael and All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

A church with origins in the 10th century, substantially developed in the late 12th century and significantly rebuilt in the 19th century. The building stands on Old London Road in Mickelham.

The church displays a complex architectural history. The earliest element is a 10th-century west door, visible in the interior. The core structure dates from the late 12th century, comprising a nave, south aisle, chancel and west tower. A side chapel was added around 1300. A west porch was added in the 15th century. In 1823, the church underwent restoration by P F Robinson. Major works in 1872 included the addition of a north aisle and extensive rebuilding of the remainder apart from the tower.

The building is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings. The north chapel is built of chequered flint and ashlar. Roofs are finished with graduated stone slate and plain tiles, with wooden shingles covering the west tower and bands of fishscale tiles on the south tower.

The plan comprises a west tower with porch, a four-bay nave with a three-bay south aisle and two-bay north aisle built abutting the north-east side chapel, and a lower two-bay chancel with a south tower and north vestry.

The squat three-stage west tower has ashlar quoins, offset angle buttresses and lancet windows, including a 19th-century two-light window on the north side at the base. The west side displays a lancet and clock-face above the porch. The porch entrance has a pointed arch with hollow moulding and quoins, with a 19th-century hoodmould. Inside the porch are two medieval grave covers and a coffered ceiling decorated with nail-head bosses and a billeted band. The inner west door is round-arched with roll-moulded hood supported by attached columns with scalloped capitals. The broached spire features louvred vents and a weather-vane.

The nave has a plinth and offset buttresses. Three-light Perpendicular-style windows with hoodmoulds light the walls. At the west end of the south aisle is an original squint. A band below the parapet which features roll-moulded coping runs the length of the nave. At the east end, a raised verge with Celtic-cross finial is surmounted on the south side by a hipped dormer with four-light leaded window and finial.

The north chapel has a flint plinth beneath a deep cyma-moulded ashlar band. The parapet matches the nave detail, sitting above a cyma-moulded band. On the north side is a narrow 19th-century round-arched door below a Perpendicular window of two cusped lights. The east side has a wide four-light pointed-arched window with reticulated tracery.

The chancel is lit by lancet windows and features ornate buttresses at the east end. Three 19th-century lancets light the east end, with the central light being lower and surmounted by an oculus. Decorative ridge tiles and an iron gable-cross complete the details. The decorative south tower displays cusped one-light windows on an offset band, an ashlar frieze with nail-head decoration pierced by oculi, and a corbelled cornice below the conical roof which bears a cross-finial.

Interior features include the 10th-century west door, which is tall and narrow with chalk quoins. The 19th-century round-arched aisle arcades rest on columns with moulded capitals. The Norman chancel arch, raised in 1872, is decorated with diamond and dog-tooth ornament. Chancel window surrounds feature roll-moulded arches on attached columns with moulded capitals.

The Norman font has a plinth supporting four colonettes and a central column. These support a square font with moulded base and tapered sides decorated with blind arcading.

The north chapel contains a monument to William Wyddowson, died 1514, and his wife. This comprises a chest-tomb with traceried panels containing shields in quatrefoils, moulded base and lid, and a wall monument featuring brass figures and inscriptive text within a traceried aedicule below a cornice with vine frieze and decorative band. Wooden dado in the chapel is formed using 17th-century embossed panels.

The chancel contains an ashlar reredos flanked by carved wooden panels, probably of the 17th century and brought from Bohemia. A rococo wall monument to Mrs Phillipa Walton, died 1749, combines ashlar and marble with shell features and swan-neck pediment. The nave floor contains a medieval grave-slab with cross and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. Banners and hatchments from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are displayed. Stained glass reset in the entrance partition is probably 16th-century. An elaborately carved wooden pulpit, brought from Belgium in 1840, stands in the church.