Parish Church Of St Michael And All Angels

The parish church of St Michael and All Angels is a building with a complex history, primarily dating to the 13th and 14th centuries, although the church was largely rebuilt in 1850 to designs by B. Ferrey, with oversight from A. Troyte-Acland. It is constructed from rubble-stone and dressed stone walls, with stone slate roofs, stone gable-copings, and crosses over triangular apex-blocks.

The church comprises a 13th-century chancel, a 14th-century south tower, a nave, a north aisle, a south-east aisle, a south vestry, and a south porch. The chancel features two restored 13th-century lancet windows on the north wall, similar windows on the south wall, and a 14th-century two-light window with trefoiled ogee lights and a quatrefoil set within a two-centered head. The east window is a 20th-century 3-light design. The south tower incorporates a porch with a newel-stair built by Ferrey. The entrance to the porch has a pointed segmental head and straight-chamfered jambs, over a single light with a trefoiled-ogee head. Trefoiled bell-openings with quatrefoil heads sit above a string, and a studded plank door is fitted with ornamental strap-hinges. A flat stone parapet tops the tower, with small carved gargoyles adorning the structure. An octagonal stone spire, incorporating lucarnes by Ferrey, rises above.

The nave, a five-bay design by Ferrey, features diagonal buttresses and buttressing between windows. The south wall has two 2-light trefoil-headed windows with quatrefoils above, featuring plate tracery. The south-east chapel, also by Ferrey, retains a four-light window with trefoil-ogee heads, set beneath a label with head-stops. The north aisle, also a Ferrey design, has three bays.

Inside, the nave arcades have round columns with moulded capitals and pointed arches, straight-chamfered with sunk quadrants. The bells of the south aisle capitals display foliage. The chancel arch features responds with moulded capitals and straight-chamfered mouldings with sunk quadrants. The chancel east window incorporates Purbeck marble shafts and capitals, stone rings, and moulded stone arches with dogtooth. The roofs are of a pointed arch-braced type, with high collars and king-posts, supported by carved stone corbels.

Among the fittings, a 13th-century piscina features a recess with shafted jambs, a trefoiled head, a label, and a round drain. A 19th-century font has a stone round bowl with four colonettes and a central stem. A 19th-century stone pulpit is octagonal, with muntins at the arrises. A white marble wall-tablet commemorates Jane, wife of Robert Williams, who died in 1841 aged 102; she was the daughter of Francis Chassereau, who was exiled from France at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Another white marble wall-tablet memorializes John Bridge and Ann Bridge.