Church Of St Michael

CHURCH OF ST MICHAEL

An Anglican parish church at Yanworth, dating primarily to the 12th century with Transitional work and 15th-century additions. The building is constructed in ashlar except for the nave north wall, which comprises a mixture of limestone rubble and dressed stone, suggesting this wall is earlier than the other walls of the nave. Stone slate roofing covers the chancel and north transept, with the nave roof probably leaded.

The church follows a plan of nave with tower incorporated at the west end, projecting south porch, north transept, and chancel. All parts feature a 12th-century moulded plinth. The south wall of the nave contains two-light and three-light stone-mullioned casements either side of the porch. The porch entrance itself has a Transitional surround to a 19th-century door, featuring a keel-moulded surround continued up over a plain tympanum with chevron mouldings in two planes. Either side stand keel-moulded engaged columns with carved capitals showing development towards stiff-stalk carving. A 12th-century nail-head string course marks the west end of the nave, cut through by a Perpendicular two-light window with cinquefoil-headed lights and hood with square stops. The nave north wall contains a small 12th-century round-headed window and a blocked 12th-century round-headed doorway with hood to its left. A 15th-century parapet with moulded capping runs along the nave, with mostly defaced gargoyles springing from a string course on both north and south walls.

The north transept has diagonal buttresses at its corners. Its east and west walls each contain a 15th-century two-light hollow-chamfered window with trefoil-headed lights and tracery within a rectangular surround with stopped hood. The north wall of the transept has a single narrow round-headed 12th-century light with cinquefoil-headed lights and stopped hood. A similar window appears in the north wall of the chancel. The east end of the transept displays a 19th-century three-light pointed window with tracery, and the south side has a Perpendicular two-light stone-mullioned window within a casement-moulded surround. A pair of small metal plaques commemorates Thomas Bicknell (died 1750) and Elizabeth Bicknell (died 1745), both mounted within simple dressed stone surrounds with projecting stone canopies above.

The gabled south porch has a segmental-pointed arched entrance. To the left of the entrance stands a scratch sundial with stone gnomon supported on a stone corbel, and stone bench seats are positioned within the porch. Stepped coping with roll-cross saddles and upright cross finials adorns the gable ends of the chancel and porch.

Interior

The interior is plastered with a four-bay nave. The Transitional chancel arch, dating from around 1200, features a billeted hoodmould. A slightly later arch to the transept has two chamfered orders. Twelfth-century dentil mouldings appear on the left-hand impost, with fine carving of a woman's face below the right-hand impost. A scroll-moulded hood with stops continues above. A tall narrow double-chamfered arch connects the nave to the tower. The nave has a 19th-century roof with braced tie beam supported by probably 15th-century corbels carved as grotesque heads. The chancel displays a 19th-century barrel roof with large square carved bosses and brattished wall plate. Stone flag floors cover the floor throughout. A double aumbry is positioned in the south wall to the right of the altar. A squint opens from the south-east corner of the transept. The rear of the blocked 12th-century north doorway remains visible in the chancel north wall.

Furnishings include a 12th-century font with cable moulding around its rim and a 20th-century base, located at the base of the tower. Nineteenth-century pews line the nave. The upper part of a cross with pellet-moulded margin rests on the sill of the west window in the north transept.

Wall paintings remain visible, including a post-Reformation painting of a skeleton representing Father Time with his scythe to the right of the tower arch. Two superimposed layers of paintings appear to the left of the same arch. The lower painting is possibly a painted consecration cross within a circle, with the upper layer an Edwardian or Early Elizabethan black-letter text within a border.