Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

Anglican parish church. The building dates from the 16th and 17th centuries but was substantially rebuilt in 1824–26 by Charles Fowler for John Mayne of Teffont Manor. It is constructed of rubble stone with a Welsh slate roof and fishscale tiles to the aisle and chapel.

The church consists of a nave, 19th-century north aisle, north-west tower with spire, chancel, north chapel dating from 1630, south vestry, and south porch.

The gabled 19th-century porch is gabled and features a pointed doorway with square hoodmould, heraldic arms of the Maynes family and the date 1824, and saddleback coped verges with kneelers and pinnacles. The south side of the nave contains two 2-light pointed windows with Y-tracery either side of the porch, diagonal buttresses, and coped verges with pinnacles. The gabled south vestry of 1824 has a 2-light Perpendicular-style window and coped verges to the roof.

The chancel features a pointed priest's door with hoodmould, offset buttresses, and at its east end a 3-light pointed window with hoodmould and carved head terminals, beneath a battlemented parapet. The north Ley chapel has two 3-light Perpendicular windows with hoodmoulds and a battlemented parapet displaying lead initials "ML/1630" (for Matthew Ley) and stone griffins holding shields. The north aisle has three 2-light Perpendicular-style windows with scrolled terminals to the hoodmoulds.

The three-stage north-west tower features setback buttresses and string courses. Its first stage contains a hollow-chamfered west doorway and 2-light window to the south. The second stage has a pointed window with quatrefoil-pierced louvres. The bell stage has a pair of pointed windows with quatrefoil-pierced louvres, a parapet with quatrefoils and corner spirelets, and a recessed spire with 2-light gablets to each face. A three-sided stair turret with loopholes occupies the south-west angle. The west end of the nave has a 3-light geometric-style window recessed between buttresses of the former belfrey, with a wheel window above.

Interior

The interior features a double-chamfered inner doorway with a blind quatrefoil above. The porch contains reset 17th and 18th-century tablets to the Davis family. The nave has a rib-panelled pointed barrel-vaulted ceiling with foliated bosses, flagstone floors, and a tall pointed west arch with 17th-century mouldings. The four-bay north aisle features a tall pointed arcade on Perpendicular-moulded piers and a 19th-century arch-braced collar roof. The tall pointed chancel arch and arch to the Ley Chapel have mouldings similar to the arcade. The chancel has a ceiling similar to the nave and two arches to the chapel, with two pointed doorways in the south wall. The chapel has a three-bay arch-braced collar roof and a polychrome tiled floor, with a 17th-century panelled partition and gate featuring cock's-head hinges to the north aisle.

The chapel contains a notable group of tombs with effigies: Henry Ley (died 1574) and his sons Matthew (died 1632) and William (died 1624). The east wall features a semi-circular sgraffito panel by de Triqueti dated 1863, and a marble tablet to the Maynes family by F. Brown dated 1770. A slate and stone tablet with arms to Henry Ley (died 1574) is also present.

Furnishings include an early 19th-century reredos with blind arcading, a pulpit and reader's desk in the same style, 17th-century-style bench ends to nave pews, and early 19th-century box pews to the sides. Hanoverian arms over the south door were created by J.G. Bubb in 1820.

The windows contain reset Medieval glass with 17th-century pictorial roundels, assembled in the 1950s.