Church of St Michael is a Grade I listed building in the Dorset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 18 March 1955. A C12 Church.
Church of St Michael
- WRENN ID
- final-wicket-grove
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Dorset
- Constituency
- North Dorset MP: Simon Hoare (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 18 March 1955
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Michael, Gussage St. Michael
- OS grid reference
- ST 985 113
- Coordinates
- 50.90145, -2.02148
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Michael is a parish church with origins dating back to the 12th century, featuring a west tower, a 13th-century nave and aisles, a rebuilt south aisle from the 14th century, and a 15th-century upper stage of the tower, north porch, and some refenestration. The chancel was completed in 1857, along with a late 19th-century north vestry, with work by G. E. Street. The church is constructed of flint with squared rubble blocks and ashlar dressings, while the tower is partially rendered. It has slated and tiled roofs, with a clerestory over the nave.
The layout includes a nave, chancel, north aisle, south aisle, west tower, north vestry, and north porch. The west tower is three stages high with an embattled parapet, featuring an original flat buttress on the west side. The lower stage has square loops, the second stage contains 14th-century trefoiled loops, and the upper floor has 15th-century pointed belfry windows with two lights and quatrefoils in the heads. The north porch features a moulded four-centred arch, while the north aisle has a 15th-century square-headed three-light window. The vestry and chancel have square-headed north and south windows with one and two lights, respectively, and the east chancel window displays plate tracery with three trefoiled lights. There is a pointed, chamfered 19th-century door to the south chancel. The south aisle includes a 13th-century lancet window on the east and two square-headed, Perpendicular tracery windows with two lights on the south wall, along with a blocked pointed, chamfered door. A 17th-century plank door with wrought-iron strap hinges leads to the north doorway.
Internally, the church features a 19th-century pointed chancel arch that reuses earlier materials, a 12th-century round-headed tower arch with alternating greensand and heathstone voussoirs, and two bay pointed arcades supported by cylindrical piers with moulded caps and bases, the south cap adorned with dog-tooth ornamentation. The nave roof from the 15th century has three bays with tie-beams and king-posts, while the north aisle has a 16th-century moulded beam roof. The 13th-century font has a circular bowl on a cylindrical stem, and there is a 15th-century trefoiled niche above the porch arch, with other features primarily dating from the 19th century.
Local climate
Church of St Michael receives an average of 800 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 54% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 70% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 21 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 78% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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