Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This parish church was originally built as a Chapel of Ease to Stratton Parish Church. It was designed in 1834 by George Wightwick for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, and subsequently enlarged in 1878 by Edward Ashworth for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Baronet. The building is constructed of dressed yellow Trerice porphyry with a slate roof.

The original structure was built in the lancet style and comprises a nave, chancel, north porch, corresponding south vestry, and a west tower with gabled belfry. In 1877-1878, the chancel was rebuilt and north and south transepts were added. A south-east vestry was added in 1896, and a baptistry occupying the site of the original 1834 vestry was added in 1914. The building underwent restoration in 1935. The late 19th-century alterations were sympathetic to Wightwick's original design.

The chancel is relatively shallow with angle buttresses featuring set-offs. It has a triple lancet east window with continuous hoodmould and label stops, with a blind quatrefoil window above. The north and south sides have buttresses with off-sets, angle buttresses to the east and west ends, and four tall chamfered lancet windows. The north and south transepts each have north and south triple lancets set beneath a superordinate pointed arch. A gabled west-end choir projection features a triple lancet window under a continuous hoodmould with label stops. Within the gable is a recessed clock opening under a pointed hoodmould with label stops, flanked by narrow lancet windows. The gabled belfry at the west end has a coped gable with openings containing two bells. Single lancet windows light the vestry. The baptistry features a heavily-moulded arched east doorway, round-headed windows on the south side, and a large quatrefoil window to the west end. A tall gabled north porch has set-back buttresses, a coped gable, and a chamfered arched doorway.

Interior

The nave has a diagonally boarded roof supported above four trusses dating from 1834. These trusses are queen-post construction with subsidiary vertical posts above a tie beam supported on arch braces carried on carved corbels. Moulded pendants hang below each queen post, and there are four ogee struts above the tie beam. All timbers, including purlins, are moulded. A moulded string at dado level rises to form the hoodmould of the north door. A large statue niche is positioned above the north door and the entrance to the baptistry. Castellated chamfered pilasters separate the transepts from the nave. A simple chamfered arch opens into the west projection, and a similar arch leads to the chancel. Double chamfered arches open into the transepts. The benches date from 1834. A pulpit of 1903 stands on a moulded stone plinth and features timber traceried panels. Two deeply-moulded Purbeck arches of 1914, carried on moulded piers with detached shafts, lead into the baptistry. The rectangular 1914 font is carried on a stem and four corner shafts, with fine angels carved on the corners and semi-circular arches carved on the sides. The baptistry has a barrel roof. A frieze of animals and birds in gesso, probably dating from 1935, decorates the north transept.

Historical Context

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, inherited the Arundell lands including Ebbingford Manor and Trerice in 1802. The Acland family was largely responsible for the 19th-century development of Bude and played a leading role in the Bude Canal scheme.

George Wightwick of Plymouth was the partner of John Foulston and subsequently succeeded to Foulston's architectural practice. He designed several buildings in Bude for Sir Thomas Acland, 10th Baronet, including the Storm Tower and buildings on the Breakwater. Wightwick regarded the building of St Michael and All Angels as an important step in his career and published an illustrated description of it in The Architectural Magazine, arguing for a consistent historical style for new churches "with as strict a regard as may be to the laws of perfect harmony". He founded the Blue Friars club in Plymouth, a select literary and convivial society to which Sir Thomas Dyke Acland belonged as a lay member. Wightwick's views on church architecture developed in opposition to the High Church Revival and the ecclesiologists, effectively excluding him from significant 19th-century patronage sources in the south west.