Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael, Kington St Michael

Parish church with origins in the 12th and 13th centuries, substantially rebuilt and restored in later periods. The church comprises a gabled nave with aisles, south porch, chancel, vestry, and a prominent west tower. The fabric is rubble stone with stone slate roofs and coped gables.

The most striking feature is the ashlar west tower, built in 1725. It rises in three stages with stopped, curved-fronted diagonal buttresses that extend to the bell-stage. The bell-openings are 2-light with Y-tracery and infilled with pierced ashlar. A pierced parapet and pinnacles crown the angles and centre of each side. An 18th-century lead hopper-head survives on the south side. The ground floor on the south side has a depressed-arch door with hoodmould and a cusped 2-light window above it.

The nave's east gable contains a small sanctus bellcote. The south aisle, which shows corbel table and ashlar corners characteristic of the 12th century, has been refenestrated in the late 13th century and again in the 19th. It retains original 2-light windows with cinquefoil over, positioned one on each side of the porch, and a 3-light east window with large cinquefoiled circle head, likely 19th-century work. The west window is a 19th-century 3-light insertion.

A large stone-slated porch occupies the south side, its ashlar front featuring a thin neo-Norman arch of mid-19th-century date. Inside, the porch retains a plastered c.1700 plaque, stone seats, and the jambs of a 12th-century door, flanked by two tall shafts with carved capitals. The door and door head themselves date to the 15th or 16th century.

The chancel sits to the east with flat corner buttressings. Its south side features a cusped lancet and a 15th-century two-light flat-headed window. The east end holds a large 3-light window of 19th-century date. A cusped lancet lights the north side. A 19th-century vestry was inserted in the angle to the north aisle.

The north aisle, added in 1755, contains large 3-light windows with long lights, pointed centres, and arched sides beneath Tudor-arched heads with hoodmould. These windows appear more 17th-century in character than their documented 1755 date suggests. One window occupies each end, two appear on the north side, and a blocked Tudor-arched centre door is visible.

Interior

The nave is divided into three bays by arcades of pointed arches. The northern arcade has circular columns with spurred circular bases and moulded circular caps; the southern arcade has circular columns with octagonal caps. These date from the medieval period, while the roof is 19th-century work. The tower arch is bead-moulded and pointed, dating to the 18th century.

The south aisle has a 19th-century roof, a cusped piscina, and a circular font.

The north aisle retains its original roof structure of king-posts and angle struts.

The chancel arch is a much-restored Norman feature of considerable width. Its mouldings meet at the angles in a lozenge pattern with zig-zag ornamentation, and it is supported by nook-shafts. The chancel roof, dated c.1874, is wind-braced. The north openings have cusped rear arches; one on the south side is enriched with dog-tooth ornament. A cusped piscina is present. The 19th-century reredos is arcaded in character.

Stained Glass

The east window dates to 1875 and is by Cox and Sons. A south lancet of 1857 is by Gibbs. The south aisle east window contains brightly coloured glass from 1857 commemorating the antiquarians John Aubrey and John Britton. A south window dates to 1891 and the west window to 1894.

Monuments

The north aisle contains a fine marble plaque to F. White (died 1707) in the north-east angle. The north wall bears a marble plaque to I. Gale (died 1795) by Tyley of Bath, and plaques to J. Gastrell (died 1678), N. Gastrell (died 1662), and J. Gilpin (died 1766). The west wall displays plaques to William Coleman of Kington Langley (died 1738), R. Glenn (died 1775), and Israel Lyte of Easton Piers (died 1661).

In the south aisle, a plaque commemorates J. Hitchcock (died 1820), signed by S. King of Castle Combe, and a Baroque plaque to D. Yealfe (died 1779).

Restoration and Alterations

The church was comprehensively restored in 1857–1858 by the architect J.H. Hakewill. Much of the decorative work and fenestration dates from this restoration or later 19th-century campaigns.