Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels, Shalbourne

An Anglican parish church of mixed periods, with the main structure dating from around 1200, expanded in about 1300, and substantially rebuilt and enlarged between 1871 and 1873 by the architect G. F. Bodley.

The building is constructed of flint and stone with a tiled roof and machine tiles on the north side. It comprises a nave with a south aisle, a west tower, a south transept, and a chancel, with a timber south porch.

The earliest features include a reset Romanesque south door with chevron and lobed arch mouldings resting on nook shafts with ribbed capitals. Two lancets on the north wall of the nave and a simple priest's door date to around 1200. The chancel windows are in the Decorated style, with two lights and quatrefoil heads featuring hollow chamfers. There is a south priest's door. The transept, built after 1300, originally had windows that were replaced with 3-light Tudor arched windows during the 1873 rebuilding.

Bodley's work of the 1870s included rebuilding the east end and tower, and adding the south aisle. The tower is notably slender and tall, rising in three stages with 2-light square-headed bell openings and a crenellated parapet.

Internally, the nave features an open crown post roof spanning five bays, with moulded ties on wall posts, all painted. The south arcade, built in 1872-3, is in Decorated style with octagonal columns. The chancel is long with a five-sided panelled ceiling below collar and braces. A 13th to 14th-century trefoiled piscina survives, and an adjacent window sill was lowered to serve as sedilia. The south aisle, added in 1871-3, opens to the transept beneath a lean-to roof.

Fittings include a medieval octagonal font with lead lining inscribed with the date March 1688 and a conical cover of 1680. The pulpit, made in 1871-3, is octagonal with linenfold decoration. An outstanding feature is the handsome oak screen and rood loft of generous scale, rising into the roof space, also dating to 1871. An oak lectern of 1871 is also present. A brass in the nave commemorates the 19th-century rebuilding.

The chancel contains several notable monuments. A limestone wall monument with a clunch effigy of 1562 commemorates Frances Choke of West Court and features a raised wall table with leatherwork arms in panels below, a Tudor arched recess with a recumbent effigy in armour lying on a sword, and a lion at the feet. Flanking Corinthian columns support an entablature with a running frieze, and a crest crowns the composition—an early example of Classical style. A black and white marble wall tablet of 1705 commemorates Elizabeth Mayott, with a recessed panel between pilasters and a curtain over the inscription. A brass of 1890 commemorates T. H. Mitchell.

The south side of the chancel displays a black and white marble wall tablet of 1720 with Corinthian pilasters, dedicating it to Martha (the surname is illegible), with an inscription under a keystone where the first dedication has been erased, a garland and cherubs above. A white marble wall monument of 1722, in Baroque style, commemorates Elizabeth Mayott with a standing draped figure in a niche flanked by Corinthian pilasters, an entablature swept up to coloured arms, and a skull, torches, and cherub below.

The south transept contains wall monuments dating to 1809 (Sarah Palmer), 1799 (William Dyer, with scrolls around the inscription), and 1789 (Daniel Stockwell, in white and grey marble, of restrained character). A small marble tablet of around 1715 records a bequest of bread by Martha Smith. A bronze tablet of 1932 commemorates Jethro Tull, the agricultural improver who lived at Prosperous Farm, Shalbourne, from 1674 to 1740.

The east chancel window of 1871 is by Kempe. Other furnishings include a narrow late 17th-century table in the sanctuary and a panelled parish chest of 1899.