Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael, Coombe Bissett

This is an Anglican parish church of mixed medieval dates, with substantial restoration in the 19th century. The building comprises a nave, north and south aisles, chancel, north transept, south tower, and south porch.

The earliest parts date to the 12th century, seen in the south aisle. The chancel was added in the 13th century, the tower in the 14th century, and the nave and north transept in the 15th century. The church underwent significant restoration in 1845 by the architect T. H. Wyatt.

The exterior is built in limestone ashlar for the tower and flint rubble for the remainder. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate and lead with coped verges and staddlestones. The south porch is a mid-19th-century gabled structure in flint, with a pointed door featuring a hood mould and carved terminals, and a cusped lancet window in the west wall. The south aisle has a two-light cusped 16th-century window with hood mould and a battlemented parapet to its lead roof. The nave clerestory contains two two-light 16th-century windows. The tower, originally 14th-century but rebuilt in ashlar in the 15th century, features heavy diagonal buttresses. Its first stage has a three-light Perpendicular window with hood mould and carved terminals. A string course marks the second stage, and the bell stage has two-light Perpendicular windows with louvres and no central mullion. The east side of the tower has two-light windows to the second and bell stages, and a three-sided stair turret with a chamfered Tudor-arched door and arrow loop to each stage. Two scratch dials and one sundial appear on the south side of the church.

The south side of the chancel has a central narrow pointed door with hood mould and terminals, flanked by two-light 16th-century windows with hood mouldes and terminals. The east end of the chancel has a three-light pointed Perpendicular window with hood mould and terminals, with flint and brick banding to the wall. The north side of the chancel has two lancets. The gabled north transept has a three-light square-headed Perpendicular window to the east and a three-light pointed Perpendicular window to the north with hood mould. The north aisle has a chamfered Tudor-arched door to the left, a three-light Perpendicular window to the right, and a battlemented parapet. The west window is a three-light Perpendicular with moulded string course carried over.

The interior of the south door exhibits a Romanesque double-chamfered round arch with 19th-century ornament and unfinished terminals. In the east wall of the porch is a blocked shouldered door case. The three-bay nave has a 15th-century king post roof with carved ceiling bosses and braced tie-beam resting on carved head corbels, with cusped struts like window lights. The south arcade comprises three double-chamfered round arches, supported on one square-chamfered pier and one cylindrical pier with scalloped capital with angle leaves; the western respond also has a scalloped capital. The north arcade has slender hollow-chamfered piers with attached shafts and pointed arches that are ogee and hollow-moulded. The north transept shares the same roof type as the nave. An organ occupies the east bay of the south aisle. A blocked pointed door to the former rood loft is visible on the first floor level of the stair turret. The chancel has a scissor roof with collar and a double-chamfered chancel arch. The south wall of the chancel has a double piscina.

The church retains a 13th-century font in the south aisle, which has a cylindrical base with four shafts. The pews and pulpit date to 1845. The east window contains good stained glass of 1901. Classical wall tablets in the north transept commemorate Elizabeth Fleetwood (died 1813) and David Feltham (died 1862).