Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael, Landrake

A parish church with significant medieval fabric, retaining some 13th-century masonry but substantially rebuilt in the late 14th and 15th centuries, with major restoration undertaken in the late 19th century. The building is constructed of slatestone rubble with granite and greenstone dressings, and features slate roofs with crested ridge tiles.

The church consists of a nave and chancel in one, a south porch, a west tower, and a north aisle with north porch. The south transept is also a feature. The nave and chancel appear largely to date from the late 14th to early 15th centuries, while the west tower and north arcade with aisle are probably of mid-15th date, with additions and alterations continuing into the later 15th century. The building is executed in Perpendicular style.

The nave and chancel are unified, with angle buttresses to the chancel. Both have single south windows of 19th-century date, with three lights, four-centred arch, through-mullions and upper tracery with hoodmould. The chancel south side has an attached slate tablet with segmental head and apron, commemorating James Oram, 1786. The chancel east end displays a plinth and a 15th-century three-light window with steep four-centred arch, cusped lights, upper tracery and hood mould.

The south porch is gabled and has a granite outer doorway with four-centred arch, concave and wave mouldings and hood mould, with a cast iron gate across. The interior features a slate floor, plastered walls and a 19th-century wagon roof with bosses. The inner doorway has a chamfered pointed arch with colonnettes to the sides, probably of 13th-century date.

The three-stage tower stands on a chamfered plinth in greenstone, with set-back buttresses, string courses and an embattled parapet. The west doorway has a granite four-centred arch with roll and concave mouldings and hood mould, fitted with a plain 19th-century door with strap hinges. Above is a three-light window with four-centred arch and hood mould, hollow-moulded surround with cusped lights, through-mullions and upper tracery. The north side of the tower features an octagonal stair tower with lancets and a clock at the second stage. The third stage has two-light bell-openings on all sides with four-centred arches and surrounds matching the west window, fitted with slate louvres. The string course to the parapet features mask gargoyles, and the battlements (partially rebuilt in the 19th century) have granite coping, pinnacles with crocketed obelisk finials and a weathervane.

The south transept has two-light 19th-century windows to east and west, and a similar three-light window to the south.

The north aisle comprises four bays, with a porch in the western bay, set upon a high moulded plinth with greenstone string course above and diagonal weathered buttresses. The east end is set back from the chancel with a diagonal buttress. The east gable end has a three-light window matching those on the tower but with a taller central light. The west end has a three-light window, probably a 19th-century replacement, with three-centred arched lights and upper tracery. To the north, three bays each contain a three-light window as on the east gable end, with some mullions replaced in the 19th century. The eastern bay has a doorway with hollow-chamfered Tudor arch and a plain 19th-century door with strap hinges.

The north porch is very shallow, set upon a continuous plinth with the aisle, with diagonal buttresses rising to crocketed pinnacles. These pinnacles have masks in roundels at their bases. The porch features a fleuron-moulded eaves cornice to the sides with masks, and a crocketed gable to the front. The four-centred arched doorway is in granite with recessed spandrels containing quatrefoils and a square hood mould with mask stops. A plain 19th-century door with strap hinges is fitted with a cast iron gate across.

Interior

The walls are plastered throughout. The nave and chancel feature 19th-century wagon roofs, with nine bays to the nave and four to the chancel. A tall four-centred arch with imposts leads to the tower, spanned by a 19th-century wooden screen. A pointed arched chamfered doorway accesses the tower stair. The upper part of the chancel arch is formed by part of the 19th-century roof structure, supported by a 15th-century shaft on each side with ring capitals and mask corbels. The south side of the chancel has a chamfered opening at low level to a rood stair with squint, now blocked but visible from the transept side. A stone newel stair is partially remaining, with an upper doorway.

The transept has a tall four-centred arch with Pevsner A-type piers featuring three-quarter shafts in place of the usual demi-shafts. An ogee piscina occupies the south wall. The transept roof is a three-bay 19th-century wagon roof with bosses.

The north arcade comprises four bays with Pevsner A-type piers and four-centred arches. The aisle roof is an 11-bay 15th-century wagon roof, much restored in the 19th century, featuring moulded ribs and purlins. A trefoil-headed piscina is set in the south wall.

Fittings

A 12th-century font of Altarnun type stands in the nave, carved from granite, comprising a square bowl on an octagonal shaft with corner faces and large rosettes in circles. A 19th-century stone pulpit is positioned in the nave, and a 19th-century marble reredos in the chancel. 19th-century wooden benches occupy the nave, aisle and transept; those in the chancel feature poppy-head bench ends. A slate hatchment in the transept records Sir Robert Geffery's will of 1705.

Monuments in the nave include a slate plate with shouldered nowy head, trumpeting angel, skull and crossed bones, to Richard Colethe (?), 1738; three slate plates with shouldered nowy heads, to John Stephens, 1776, Ruby Reed, 1780, and Ruby Reed, 1829; and a slate plate with pedimental top and urn, to Mary Lang, 1807.

In the chancel are set in an aumbry a brass to Edward Coutney, Lord of Wotton in Landrake, 1509; a fine pair of slate monuments, both of 1607, to Nicholas Mylls and his wife, with carved figures in relief and strapwork; a marble monument on slate ground, to John Littleton, 1847; and a marble tablet on marble ground, to Grace Hambly, 1810.

In the transept are a slate tablet to Elizabeth Rowe, 1670; a marble tablet on slate ground, to Peter Palmer, 1829; a slate tablet with segmental head and apron, to John Palmer, 1785; and a fine slate tablet with shouldered nowy head and carved leaves, to Thomas Rowe, 1713.

In the north aisle are a marble tablet to William Steed, 1809; a slate tablet with swept nowy head, to John Blake, 1819; a slate tablet with painted incised segmental head, to Philip Blake, 1808; a slate tablet with carved urn, to Samson Rendle, 1821; a slate tablet with pedimental top and flaming urn, to John Sanders, 1806; a stone tablet to Catherine Blake, 1827; an oval stone tablet with corbel, to Jenny Colins, 18th century, by Allen of Plymouth; and a slate tablet with pedimental top and carved figure of death with hourglass and scythe, primitive Corinthian pilasters, apron with skull and crossed bones, to Daniell Truscott, 1751.

Glass

The chancel east window contains stained glass of 1866; the chancel south window contains stained glass of 1887. Other windows are fitted with 20th-century stained glass or lattice glazing.