Church Of St Michael The Archangel

Church of St Michael the Archangel

This Anglican parish church contains some remnants dating from around 1190, with the chancel from the 13th century, north and south chantries from the 14th century, aisles rebuilt in the late 14th century, and the remainder from the 15th century. It is constructed of large squared coursed limestone blocks with slate roofs and lead to the south aisle.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with clerestory, north and south aisles, north and south porches, a deep chancel, and south and north chantry chapels. The west tower stands in three stages with a moulded plinth, two string courses, octagonal buttresses rising to prominent pinnacles, and an embattled parapet. The west face contains a pair of 19th-century doors in a 4-centre double wave mould surround with no hood; above these are 2-light perpendicular windows with deep casement mould, and a 3-light belfry window with wooden louvres. The north and south sides have similar belfry stage windows.

The north aisle west window is a 3-light perpendicular window in a square hood with panelled corners. The south aisle has a 3-light 14th-century reticulated window, followed by a diagonal buttress and plain parapet over string with saddle-back coping. It contains 1+2 reticulated 3-light windows separated by a 2-storey porch with a stair turret. The porch has a flat parapet over a flush 2-light casement above a decorated doorway with hood mould, containing a splendid wide plank studded gate on early strap hinges. The inner doorway is also decorated.

The south chantry has diagonal buttresses dying into the south aisle and a prominent octagonal stair turret rising above the main parapet with a series of 'dumb-bell' slits. The 14th-century windows have the left one in a square hood and the right one pointed with unusual tracery. The east return has 5-light perpendicular windows with five large projecting carved heads, two serving as stops, on the hood mould under a parapet raised at the centre over the window head.

The south clerestory has five 3-light perpendicular windows to the eaves. The east end of the chancel has a 2-stage corner buttress on the left and a 5-light perpendicular window without hood. The south face of the chancel has a 3-light perpendicular window to a square hood and a baroque wall tablet. The east wall of the north chantry, in the same plane as the east chancel wall and separated from it by a 2-stage buttress, has a 5-light perpendicular window with super-transome and a diagonal 3-stage buttress on the right.

The north side has three 4-light square-headed reticulated windows with two 3-stage buttresses, then a diagonal buttress dying into the north aisle. This aisle has a porch between 4-light square-headed decorated windows with hoods. The porch stands in two storeys with diagonal 2-stage buttresses and a stair turret. The decorated doorway contains a pair of wide plank doors on strap hinges, beneath a statue niche with a rich canopy containing an image, and an upswept parapet with saddle-back coping, pinnacles, and a small central cross. The porch is lierne vaulted with a fine 15th-century inner door with perpendicular tracery beneath an image niche containing a headless figure.

Interior

The walls are generally plastered except in the chancel, and the floor has ledger slabs. The nave is four and a half bays with standard 4-colonnette and 4-hollows piers on high bases and a clerestory, which is blind on the north side. It has a barrel roof with a series of eleven angels on each side and a half-bay celure over the rood. The north aisle has arch-braced collar rafters; the south aisle has a flat cusped wind-braced roof. The lofty 15th-century tower arch has a panelled intrados, and the wall here is exposed rubble. The chancel arch also has a panelled intrados, and the chancel has a barrel vault roof to brattished plate.

The south side has two broad arches cut through the 13th-century fabric under three 2-light clerestory windows. To the north is a lofty segmental pointed arch to an organ gallery, and a lower recut arch carried on an octagonal 15th-century pier with moulded cap. The door to the north chapel is under an unglazed 2-light window. A piscina with a projecting bracketed bowl and credence shelf, and a further large opening perhaps for an aumbry, are visible. The floor is stone.

The south chantry, known as the Bettesthorne Chapel, has 20th-century low-pitched traceried trusses, a stone floor, a 2-stage piscina/aumbry, and a priest's door. The north chantry, the Still Chapel, has a barrel roof plastered with a thin exposed rib in twenty compartments. A good parvise screen separates the chancel from the north aisle, which also has a large organ gallery. The floor is ledger slab.

The furnishings include a complete set of pews, somewhat modified by William Walter of Maiden Bradley between 1638 and 1641; substantial remains of a 15th-century rood screen with a 20th-century gallery and rood; and similar screens to the two chantries. A 19th-century openwork pulpit is by C. E. Ponting. In the south chapel on the chancel side is a good 15th-century chest tomb and a good baroque wall monument dated 1712 to William Chafin, an 1398 floor brass to J. Bettesthorne, Royal Arms from 1684, and some recut misericords from 1948. An octagonal Purbeck bowl font stands on a 19th-century granite base.

The stained glass is mainly Victorian, though the west window in the Bettesthorne Chapel contains four medieval panels, and some fragments appear in the central window to the Still Chapel. The window to the right of the south porch in the south aisle is by Clayton and Bell; the south window of the chancel, dated 1933, is by Christopher Webb.

Outside the north porch is an unfixed cast-iron foot-scraper with raised inscription reading "MERE CHURCH: 1819" on the base.