Church Of St Michael

The Church of St Michael is an Anglican parish church dating back to the 14th century, with alterations made in the mid-18th century and a restoration carried out between 1894 and 1897 by E.H. Lingen Barker. The church is constructed from rubble of two different colours, laid in alternating courses and banded in the tower, with freestone dressings, plain clay tile roofs, and raised coped verges. It comprises a nave, chancel, a south transept tower, a north aisle, a north porch, and a north vestry, each covered by a separate gabled roof.

The nave has three bays with late or post-medieval two- and three-light windows featuring cusped details, with the exception of a segmental-headed two-light west window and a north window with two plain lights. A blocked south door has a round head. The chancel features a three-light cusped east window with a drip, and a south window consisting of two pointed lights.

The three-stage south transept tower has diagonal buttresses to the first stage and flat alternating quoins above. The first stage contains a two-light window with a drip on the south side, and a pointed door at the east, accessible by steps. The second stage has a single light, and a vestigial chimney rises through the east wall. The third stage has louvred two-light openings to the bell chamber on all sides, with four corner gargoyles below crocketed finials and a battlemented parapet.

The two-bay north aisle has a restored two-light Decorated east window, a single segmental-headed west light, and a three-light north window next to the north porch. The north porch has an ogee-headed arch between crocketed finials and a crocketed pinnacle. The north vestry has a segmental-headed door with a keystone, a straight-headed two-light north window, and a low stack at the east gable head.

The interior has a plain barrel-vaulted nave and chancel, with a cross-vaulted sanctuary. The three-bay north aisle features square fluted piers and pilasters. Notable fittings include a 12th-century plain scallop font located in the north aisle wall with a scratched dog tooth, elegant Laundian rails with turned balusters, a quadruple barley sugar newel, and a moulded rail. An early plank and nail north door is also present. Historic monuments include a Berkeley memorial from 1662, featuring painted stone arms and heraldic devices around two brass plates dedicated to Richard and May Berkeley, and a marble tablet from 1736, beneath a broken pediment filled with arms, flanked by fluted Corinthian pilasters, and above a gadrooned cill and apron with putti. The north vestry was, in the 18th century, a private Beaufort room open to the chancel.