Church Of Saint Michael

Church of Saint Michael

A parish church at Trusham with origins in the 13th century—the first rector is recorded in 1260, and the building was reconsecrated in 1259 by Walter Bronsecombe, Lord Bishop of Exeter. The surviving structure dates mostly to the 15th and 16th centuries and was restored in 1890.

The church is built of rendered stone rubble with granite and Beer stone dressings, beneath dry slate roofs with coped gable ends. It comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle and south porch.

The slender west tower rises in two stages. At ground level is a round-headed west entrance doorway with the date 1641 carved into the granite arch stone, with a relieving arch above. A granite window above has two arched lights and a relieving arch; higher up on the south wall is a small slit window with a continuous string course above. The top stage has granite windows on the north-west and south sides, each with two arched lights and hoodmoulds. A further granite string runs to the base of the rubble parapet, which has granite copings to battlements.

The north aisle west window is 19th-century freestone in Perpendicular style. Three windows on the north wall of the north aisle are 15th-century Perpendicular with Beer stone tracery; the left one has cinquefoil-headed lights and a Beer stone lower frame and mullions, while the other two have trefoil lights and granite frames. The north chancel window is freestone with two lights, flat-headed and trefoil-traced. The east chancel window is 19th-century freestone in Decorated style with a pointed label and carved stops. The south wall has two identical 19th-century Perpendicular style freestone windows, one close to the porch on the left and one towards a stair turret to the right of the porch. The stair turret links the nave to the chancel. A 20th-century lean-to vestry stands to the right. The porch has a rendered pointed doorway with granite imposts; the inner granite doorway is chamfered and similar to the tower entrance but slightly pointed, with a carved armoured angel in a niche above.

The interior features ogee-moulded waggon roofs of the 15th and 16th centuries over the nave, chancel and north aisle. Chancel ceiling panels are decorated with painted stylised plant ornament. The three-bay arcade between the nave and north aisle has wave-moulded standard B piers (following Pevsner's classification) with four-centred arches and cushion bases to the responds; several original rear arches survive. The tower arch is rounded rubble; a 19th-century oak bell frame is installed. A granite newel stair to the rood loft has a round-headed granite doorway. A narrow pointed granite doorway connects the vestry.

The chancel piscina is set on a shaft made from a reused Norman fragment with pellet-moulded lower border. Fittings include a round Norman font with roll mouldings and a 19th-century cover; a 15th and 16th-century oak rood screen with original timber in the base but mostly 19th-century reconstruction; 19th-century pine pews with moulded rectangular ends; a 19th-century reredos with cinquefoils, crocketed pinnacles, and a guilloche and trailing vine frieze with brattishing and painted wall decoration above; a 19th-century oak polygonal pulpit; and a 17th-century oak chest with three locks.

Principal monuments include one to John Staplehill (1593) on the north wall of the chancel, featuring painted praying figures in wood of himself, his wife, four sons and four daughters within an arched recess with an inscribed brass below. A particularly fine marble pedimented classical aedicule on the east wall of the aisle commemorates John Stooke and Mary his wife, with Corinthian capitals enclosing oval portrait medallions. Further Stooke family monuments on the south wall of the nave include one to William Stooke (1677) and his sons William (1676) and James (1677), with a steep pediment surmounted by an hour glass and flanked by ball finials, the tympanum displaying a skull and cross bones.