Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael, Guiting Power

An Anglican parish church of mixed dates, primarily medieval but substantially rebuilt and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The building comprises a nave with north and south transepts, a west tower, a chancel with vestry on the north side, and is constructed of ashlar for the nave, tower and transepts, with coursed squared and dressed limestone used for the chancel and vestry. The roof is covered in limestone slate with limestone gable coping.

The earliest fabric dates to the 12th century. The north doorway in the nave retains its original chevroned arch decorated with billet and star ornament, flanked by jamb shafts with voluted and scalloped capitals resting on imposts bearing incised decoration. The capital of the right jamb is scalloped; the left capital takes the form of a head with tongue protruding. An eroded stone head sits above the doorway. The south doorway, also 12th-century, was moved from its original position on the south side of the nave to the south transept, where it now stands beneath an arch of three orders with roll and chevron mouldings, topped with a 20th-century tympanum and double plank door.

The chancel is largely a 1903 rebuild, though it preserves important 12th-century features. A flat-chamfered Early English priests' doorway with roll-moulded stopped hood stands in the south wall, accompanied by a single-light window with trefoil head. These represent the sole surviving remains of the original 12th-century chancel. The 1903 reconstruction introduced two lancet windows at the east end and a two-light window with Perpendicular-style tracery in the south wall, designed as copies of the originals; a further single lancet to the left was added in 1903. All lancet windows carry hoods. The chancel is buttressed on its east side with clasping buttresses.

The Perpendicular west tower rises in three stages with diagonal buttresses and heavily moulded strings marking the divisions between stages. The base carries a heavily moulded string. The parapet is embattled. The tower contains four two-light bell openings with stopped hoods and limestone slate louvres, and a single-light window with round head featuring carved spandrels and a hollow moulded surround. The west window comprises three lights with stopped hood and Perpendicular tracery.

The north transept was added in 1820 and the south transept in 1844. Both feature diagonal buttresses. The south transept's east wall holds a three-light window with vesicas and hood with diamond stops; a similar window occupies the north wall. The north transept contains a three-light 19th-century window with tracery in its west wall and a five-light 19th-century window in its north wall, both with hoods featuring diamond stops.

A vestry was built in 1903 with a boiler room below. Its east wall holds a three-light window with cusped heads, and its north wall a two-light window with tracery. Two mudstone tablets are fixed to the east wall; the left-hand stone is completely eroded and the right-hand stone is partially legible, neither bearing a visible date.

Interior features include plaster removed from the transepts, exposing hollow-moulded four-centred arches on moulded imposts serving the north and south transepts and chancel; a taller, similar arch leads to the west tower. A small niche with pointed head sits to the right of the 12th-century north doorway.

The nave roof is partly 15th-century, comprising three bays with four cambered ties supported on eight stone corbels carved with faces. Two of the central ties feature a central carved boss: one depicting a bearded man, the other a Tudor rose. The roofs of the north and south transepts date to 1903. The chancel roof, also 1903, is coloured and decorated tile, partially concealed by 20th-century wood panelling.

Fittings include a 20th-century stone pulpit on an old stone base, beneath which lie the remains of a baby's coffin, a headstone and four other pieces of worked stone. The font is Perpendicular octagonal with a quatrefoil on each face of the bowl. 19th-century pews occupy the nave, chancel and transepts. Royal arms of George III hang above the south doorway.

Monuments include two 19th-century white marble tablets to members of the Snell family on the south wall of the chancel, a 19th-century white on grey decorative marble tablet with urn to John Walker, 'Lord of the Manor', and a brass plaque dated 1712. A wood plaque depicting Jesus carrying the cross, dated 1601, hangs on the east wall behind the altar. The south wall of the chancel also displays a white marble tablet in sarcophagus form to Mary Walker died 1825, and a 19th-century brass plaque to members of the Stratford family. The south wall of the nave carries a white on grey decorative marble tablet to Lieutenant Wenman Wynnialt, who drowned in Canada in 1842. Three wooden 19th-century plaques recording charities are mounted on the tower walls.