Church Of St Michael

This parish church retains a 12th-century font and basic fabric that appears to be 15th century or earlier, with some 15th-century detail surviving in the north aisle. However, the entire building was thoroughly restored in 1875, when a new south chapel and south porch were added.

The church is built of local rubble walling, mostly mudstone. The medieval fabric has red conglomerate ashlar quoins and plinth, while the 19th-century extensions have rusticated volcanic ashlar quoins and Hamstone plinth. Medieval details are executed in Beerstone or volcanic ashlar, with 19th-century details in Hamstone ashlar. The roofs are slate with some crested ridge tiles.

The nave, chancel and west tower appear to be 15th century or earlier but were much rebuilt, with nearly all the detail replaced in 1875. Unusually, the chancel is taller than the nave. The north aisle retains some 15th-century detail. The 1875 restoration added the new south porch and south chapel, the latter running parallel to the nave. The architectural style throughout is Perpendicular.

The Tower

The west tower is broad and relatively low, of three stages with low set-back buttresses and an embattled parapet. A semicircular stair turret projects from the north side, featuring tiny slit windows and its own embattled parapet rising slightly above the main parapet level. It is surmounted by a 19th-century wrought iron weathercock. The belfry stage has arch-headed two-light Perpendicular-style windows—one each on three sides and two on the south side.

The west doorway has a flat-arched opening with a moulded surround featuring 17th-century style stops. It contains 19th-century double plank doors with studded coverstrips and ornate strap hinges and ferramenta. Like most of the 19th-century windows, it has a moulded hood with projecting square labels, apparently intended for carving in situ but never executed. Above this a relieving arch follows a two-centred arch, probably for the earlier 15th-century west doorway. Above that is a 19th-century four-light window with Perpendicular tracery and the dripcourse carried over as a hood. Higher still is a 19th-century painted iron clock face in a moulded Hamstone frame.

The south side of the tower has a small two-light Perpendicular-style window in the lower stage and a 15th-century volcanic stone trefoil-headed lancet with hoodmould lighting the ringing loft.

South Side

The south side of the nave has a broad 19th-century four-light Perpendicular window. To the right projects the added porch with gabled end and Hamstone coping surmounted by a fleuree cross. The outer arch has an ovolo-moulded surround and contains softwood double plank doors with ornate strap hinges.

The south chapel projects slightly further forward and has steep gabled ends with coping and apex crosses. It features a narrow Hamstone priest's door on the south side, a three-light window on the south side and another on the east end.

The chancel has similar 19th-century gable coping and apex cross with flanking corner buttresses. There is another three-light Perpendicular window on the south side and a tall three-light window on the east end.

North Side

On the north side of the chancel is a small window converted into a squint by the junction of the north aisle. It is of two lights, in Beerstone and simple Early Decorated style. It may be original and rediscovered during the 19th-century restoration, though it appears very well-preserved if so.

The north aisle is 15th century with 19th-century coping and apex crosses. The east end has an original Beerstone three-light Perpendicular window with moulded hood. The north side has three 19th-century Hamstone two-light Perpendicular windows tending towards the right (west) end.

Interior

The porch has a 19th-century roof and contemporary flagged and tiled floor. The south doorway may be 15th century—a volcanic ashlar two-centred arch with chamfered surround and hoodmould, containing a 19th-century door.

The interior of the church is largely the result of the 1875 restoration. All the roofs date from that time. The nave and chancel lie under a continuous six-bay roof comprising heavy arch-braced trusses springing from large timber corbels. The corbels in the chancel are at a slightly higher level. The purlins are moulded and the ceiling is pine-planked as a barrel vault. There is a similar two-bay roof in the south chapel and a four-bay roof to the north aisle.

The tall 15th-century tower arch has a round-headed double arch ring which dies into the responds, although an impost shows inside the tower on the north side. Inside the tower the ringing floor is 19th century, but the stair doorway is original 15th century—built of red conglomerate stone and volcanic stone with a two-centred head and containing an ancient plank door hung on strap hinges.

The 15th-century Beerstone arcade to the north aisle is of four bays with one overlapping the chancel. The piers are moulded (Pevsner's Type B) with plain caps to the shafts only. The 19th-century Beerstone two-bay arcade to the south chapel has low moulded piers with moulded caps. All the windows have 19th-century Beerstone rear inner arches and reveals.

The floor is made up of patterns of polychrome tiles and flagstones. The granite flag under the lectern is a fragment of an illegible 17th-century gravestone.

Chancel Fittings

The chancel has a Beerstone reredos carved in Gothic style, comprising a central three-bay blind arcade with cusped ogee arches, crockets and finials. The centre panel is plain as a background for the altar cross and flanked by painted portraits of St Gabriel and St Michael, flanked again by painted commandment boards.

The oak altar is Victorian but appears to incorporate 17th-century heavy turned balusters, possibly from the former altar rails. The present altar rail is oak on oak standards. There are Victorian Gothic stalls, a low chancel screen, pulpit and tower screen, a Victorian eagle lectern and plain pine benches. A contemporary brass chandelier hangs in the chancel.

Font

The 12th-century late Norman granite font has a square bowl supported on a central column and four smaller shafts on the corners with moulded caps and bases. It sits on a Victorian plinth. The edges of the bowl cant forward slightly towards the top and the ornament varies on each side, including simple chevrons, scallops and stylised foliage; some may be secondary. It has a 19th-century lid.

Monuments

The oldest and finest monuments have been reset together in the north aisle. The principal monument is a good Beerstone table tomb in memory of John Elquier (died 1575). The niche has a low segmental arch with a broad ovolo-moulded surround enriched with egg and dart and with carved foliate spandrels, crenelated head, flanking fluted Ionic pilasters surmounted by flaming vases, and the shelf supported on shaped consoles. The inside of the niche has facetted panels and in the centre of the back is a carved heraldic achievement. The shelf is inscribed "Here lieth John Paul Elquier who ended this liffe the third of Maye 1575" to which has been added "and his wiffe Jenfr" (sic).

Above this is a good but undated 17th-century marble plaque in memory of Edward Yarde with a rhyming elegy. It is set in an architectural frame with flanking pilasters enriched with carved symbols such as a skull, book, scythe, hourglass, etc., with ribbons and flanked by cherubs on their sides as wings, an open pediment above containing an heraldic achievement and flanked by skulls with wings and hourglasses, and below the shelf heraldic achievements flank a bas relief carving of a shrouded corpse. The apron below contains a cherub.

Immediately to the left of these is a carved slate plaque in memory of John Short (died 1657) with a frame of stylised interlaced foliage which contains the same heraldic achievement four times.

The rest of the monuments are 19th century. The north aisle has a white marble memorial to Harriet Collyns (died 1868) with a Gothic-style frame; a shaped white marble plaque on black ground in memory of Abraham Smith (died 1821) and those of his family who died 1812–79; a Gothic-style brass plaque in memory of Frederick le Mesurier (died 1868) and family; and a white marble sarcophagus-shaped plaque in memory of John Franklin (died 1831) and family. In the south chapel is a white marble plaque with moulded cornice in memory of Barbara Force (died 1832) and husband William (died 1838).

There are also some loose fragments from demolished 17th-century monuments: a marble plaque in memory of Hugh Vaughan (died 1631) in the north aisle and in the south chapel an heraldic achievement and two carved putti.

Stained Glass

Victorian stained glass fills the chancel windows, with early 20th-century stained glass in the nave and tower.

Summary

Although much of the basic fabric appears to be medieval, the church is essentially the result of a thorough and consistent restoration of 1875—an attractive and coherent scheme. Only the font, the aisle arcade and one of the north aisle windows are pre-1875 detail.