Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael

A Grade I listed Anglican parish church at Withington, with origins in the 12th century and significant phases of rebuilding through the 13th, early 14th, and 15th centuries. The church was substantially restored and had minor additions made by architect David Brandon in 1872.

The building is constructed in coursed, squared and dressed limestone with a stone slate roof. It follows a traditional cruciform plan with a nave featuring a projecting south porch, a central tower, a south chapel, and a chancel with a vestry attached to its north side.

The chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century and retains a 12th-century corbel table reused from the former nave, decorated with grotesque animal and beast heads on its north and south sides. The south wall of the chancel displays a trefoil-headed lancet window, a 19th-century plank priest's door with decorative hinges set within a flat-chamfered pointed surround with a scroll-moulded hood, and a three-light hollow-chamfered stone-mullioned window with cinquefoil-headed lights beneath a Tudor-arched head with rosette stops. A Perpendicular five-light east window occupies the chancel's eastern wall. The north wall features a trefoil-headed lancet, and the vestry is lit by 19th-century trefoil-headed lancets with a trefoil light towards the apex of the gable.

The tower rises in three stages: the lower stage dates to the 12th century, the second stage (containing a clock) to the 13th century, and the upper stage to the 15th century. The north side of the tower is buttressed and was rebuilt at its base around 1840. The original internal access to the tower has been altered to an external access via a plank door approached by five stone steps within the buttressing. A tall round-headed light stands to the left of this doorway. The second stage features a pointed window with a hood, now blocked with a lancet inserted into the blocking, similar lancets appearing in three other faces. The third stage has five-light belfry windows with stone louvres and Perpendicular tracery, each topped with a crocketted ogee head. Corner pilasters with sunken panelling rise to form pinnacles, and strings separate the stages with an embattlemented parapet below.

The nave dates to the 13th century and retains a 12th-century north door decorated with chevron moulding over a plain tympanum. A 15th-century clerestorey was added above. The north wall features a stepped plinth. Five three-light clerestorey windows with cinquefoil heads occupy each of the north and south walls, with pilasters between the windows rising through the parapet with finials. The west wall originally held two 12th-century round-headed windows, now partially visible either side of a later three-light Perpendicular window which cuts through the 12th-century sill course. The south wall displays a three-light Perpendicular window with stepped mullions at its far right, beneath which remains of a moulded plinth incorporate a slatestone monument to Robert Whitterne (died 1667) and another Robert Whitterne (died 1712). Nearby lies the remains of a lid from an infant's stone coffin carved with a cross.

The south porch dates to the 13th century and features angle buttresses and a pointed flat-chamfered entrance with 19th-century double doors with balusters. A south transept of 14th-century date, with small angle buttresses, contains a Decorated three-light window with trefoil-headed lights, trefoils and dagger tracery. The left-hand wall of the transept displays a hollow-moulded, stone-mullioned trefoil-headed light with carved spandrels, whilst the right-hand wall holds a similar two-light window. The nave and south chapel are crowned with moulded capping to the parapet and stepped gable-end coping with cross finials.

The interior reveals substantial medieval fabric. Inside the porch are flat-chamfered stone bench seats and a 19th-century plank door set within a fine 12th-century round-headed surround featuring three orders of chevron moulding, one enriched with flowers, and a hoodmould with daisies terminating in beast-head stops. Two jamb shafts with carved and scalloped capitals flank the doorway. A blocked round-headed 12th-century north door stands opposite. The interior has been scraped throughout.

The nave contains a pointed west tower arch of three orders with restored or rebuilt 12th-century piers comprising three engaged columns. The south and east tower arches are double-chamfered. Two blocked pointed windows are visible in the nave's north wall above a mutilated string course, with a similar blocked opening in the south wall. A blocked flat-chamfered doorway in the upper left of the chancel arch formerly led to a rood screen, and a blocked doorway with a shouldered surround near the north-west corner of the tower provided former access to the tower stairs.

The nave roof comprises five bays with 19th-century trusses featuring tie beams with brattishing and four-petal flower decoration, braced below from foliate stone corbels and centred with a king post. The chancel has a 19th to 20th-century roof with multiple collar-beam trusses with curving arch-like bracing, whilst the south chapel features a 19th to 20th-century scissor-braced roof.

Significant interior features include a restored 14th-century niche, probably an Easter sepulchre, on the south wall of the nave with pierced cusping, ballflower ornament, and pinnacles either side, topped by a crocketted gable with an engaged finial. Within a recess lies a headstone formerly removed from the churchyard inscribed "HONEST JHON STOCKWELL WHO DIED OF THE PLAGUE, 1665". A small defaced 15th-century piscina with credence shelf on the left indicates a former nave altar, and a defaced piscina with pointed arched recess occupies the south chapel. The north wall of the chancel retains a recess for a small lead cistern with a draw-hole to the left of the altar. A 19th-century coloured mosaic frieze runs beneath the east window.

The church contains an octagonal font (probably post-Reformation) inside the south door, a 19th-century stone pulpit with blind cinquefoil-headed panels at the north-west corner of the nave, and 19th-century pews.

Monuments include a particularly fine work by Edward Marshall to Sir John Howe of Cassey Compton and his wife, located on the south wall of the nave towards the west end. This marble monument features three painted heraldic shields at its top and a two-bay niche containing half-length figures of Sir John and his wife flanked by Corinthian columns, with effigies of five sons and three daughters kneeling in prayer below and an inscription plaque at the base. A stone monument to Gilbert Osborne, Rector of Withington (died 1656), of limestone and formerly highlighted in gold and black, displays single female figures either side of the inscription plaque, a segmental pediment above with mourning figures flanking a heraldic shield, and putti either side of an urn at the bottom. Within the tower are a limestone monument to Gilbert Osborne (died 1646) with scrollwork around the tablet and heraldic shield, and a simple limestone monument to Thomas Musto (died 1684). A brass plaque to Elizabeth Thornburgh (died 1627) occupies the south-west corner, and four 19th-century marble monuments are displayed throughout. A 15th-century stone effigy of a priest in full vestments lies on the south side of the chancel.

The church retains 19th-century stained glass in the east window and south chapel, as well as fragments of 15th-century coloured glass in the nave's west window.