Church of St Michael and All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This is a parish church of principally 14th and 15th century date, situated at Bank Top in the parish of Hathersage. It was significantly restored by William Butterfield in 1851–52, with extensions and minor alterations added in 1949.

The church is constructed of massive ashlar gritstone with a moulded plinth. The roofs are slated and laid to diminishing courses, with 19th century coped gables featuring moulded kneelers and cross finials. The building comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, a south aisle porch, a chancel with a former chantry chapel now used as a lady chapel on the north side, and a sacristy and vestry on the south side.

The west tower rises in two stages off a three-stage plinth with stepped angle buttresses. Above the string course to the first stage are 'Y' tracery belfry lights with cusped heads below hoodmoulds with stops. A moulded string course with gargoyles separates the earlier work from the 15th century crenellations to the parapet. The tower is topped by a 15th century crocketed octagonal spire. The west window is Perpendicular in style, comprising three lights with panel tracery.

The four-bay nave has a 15th century clerestory with flat-headed, two-light windows featuring mouchettes above cusped ogee-headed lights. These are set below stepped hoodmoulds with stops and a moulded string course, topped by a crenellated parapet with grotesque spouts and 19th century crocketed pinnacles to the east gable.

The south aisle porch is gabled with raking crenellations above a moulded string course, the merlons decorated with heraldic and floral motifs. The doorways have double chamfered surrounds and pointed arches. The south aisle itself dates to the mid-15th century and comprises two bays with stepped buttresses—one positioned between the windows and the other angled at the east end, both topped with tapered crocketed pinnacles. The two-light windows were remodelled in 1851 with flowing tracery beneath flat heads and hoodmoulds with stops. A moulded string course with crenellated parapet runs above.

The two-bay chancel has a plain corbel table and flat-headed, two-light windows with ogee heads within moulded surrounds. The east window, now restored, is three lights with flowing tracery beneath a hoodmould with carved stops. The east gable has stepped angle buttresses. A 20th century vestry on the south wall partially obscures the window and encloses a Decorated doorway.

The former chantry chapel dates to circa 1459 and comprises two bays with a gabled east end and crenellated parapet above a moulded string course on the north wall. It features an east window of three lights and two two-light windows to the north wall, all Perpendicular with cusped lights beneath shallow pointed arched heads with hoodmoulds and stops. Angle buttresses to the corners and a stepped buttress between the north wall windows carry a gargoyle above. The doorway to the west end has a four-centred arched head.

The north aisle has a crenellated parapet above a moulded string course and a projecting ashlar stack between windows, shouldered at the eaves, with a circular stone chimney. A blocked doorway at the west end has a deeply chamfered, pointed arch below a hoodmould with stops.

The interior features a tall tower arch to the nave with embattled foliated bands as capitals. The roof line of an earlier nave is visible above this arch. An octagonal font of chalice form stands in the nave, decorated with heraldic shields of the Eyre, Barnake and Padley families on three facets, with carved decoration on the remaining facets.

The four-bay nave has octagonal arcade piers with simply moulded arches. The north arcade capitals feature a form of stiff-leaf decoration, while the responds to the tower wall and chancel walls have more elaborate forms, the latter being a restoration. One of the north arcade bases appears formerly to have supported a column of clustered shafts. The south arcade capitals are plainly moulded. The chancel arch appears contemporary with the nave arcades.

The north chancel chapel, added in 1463 as a chantry chapel to the Eyre family, is accessed from the north aisle through a shallow pointed arch. The chapel's east wall has tapered corbel supports for statuary, now missing, and an aumbry to the south of the window.

The chancel contains a 14th century two-light window to the north wall, above an elaborate ogee arched recess housing a chest tomb to Robert Eyre of 1459 and his wife Joan, with brasses reset in a slab of crinoidal limestone, together with brasses to their children. The tomb was restored by the Countess of Newburgh in 1852. The east window contains glass by Kempe, originally from Derwent Church but reset in Hathersage in 1948 following the creation of Derwent reservoir and the submersion of that church. The chancel south wall has an ogee-headed piscina and triple sedilia, both late 14th century, beneath a continuous string course that steps up above the pointed arched doorway now enclosed by the vestry.

Additional monuments to the Eyre family have been reset in the chancel south wall, including those to Radulph Eyre, died 1493, and his wife Elizabeth; and Sir Arthur Eyre, circa 1560. The brasses to Robert Eyre, circa 1500, his wife and some of their children have been reset in the recess of the main Eyre chest tomb, and the brasses thought to be to two of their daughters have been reset in the chancel south wall.