Church of St Michael

SK 17 SW 2/74

PARISH OF TADDINGTON MAIN ROAD (north side) Church of St Michael

12.07.67

GV I Parish Church. C14 and 1891 by Naylor and Sale of Derby. Rubble limestone with gritstone dressings and quoins. Lead roofs with coped gables and parapets. Stone slate roof to porch. West steeple, clerestoried nave with aisles, north vestry and south porch. Chancel with north vestry.

Tower and broach spire of gritstone, early C14. Angle buttresses. Two narrow ogee-headed lights to west. Bell openings of paired ogee lights under a flat head, to north, west and south. Spire with two tiers of lucarnes.

South elevation: gabled porch with diagonal buttresses, moulded inner and outer doorways. Chamfered string course linking the sills of the windows. Buttresses with two set-offs. Two two-light windows to the aisle, deeply set with square heads and mid C14 tracery. Two similar windows to the chancel. Three-light south aisle east window with purely Decorated tracery. Low priest's doorway to the chancel. Three two-light clerestory windows with cusped ogee lights under a square head.

North elevation: two windows to the aisle and one to the chancel, similar to those on the south side, and three similar clerestory windows. North aisle east window of three lights with Decorated tracery. East window of five lights with Decorated tracery.

INTERIOR: tall four-bay arcades with octagonal piers, moulded octagonal abaci and double-chamfered arches. The east responds on head corbels. Double-chamfered chancel arch on head corbels. Modest double-chamfered tower arch. Earlier roof line visible above. In the chancel a piscina and triple sedilia, the latter with ogee arches. Jacobean pulpit restored in 1942. On the north side of the chancel a built-in C14 stone bible support or lectern. Brass in the south aisle to Richard Blackwall died 1505. In the south aisle a plain slate wall tablet to Sussana Roberts died 1833 by J Bradbury of Bakewell.

Octagonal font in the south aisle, probably C17. Font in the north aisle C14 or earlier. At the west end of the north aisle two Benefaction boards dated 1773 and 1799. C17 oak chest in the north aisle, Victorian Gothic wooden lectern. Traces of wall painting on the west wall.

The church was restored by Naylor and Sale in 1891. The north west vestry was built in 1939 using old materials from 'Thornsett', a C16 house in Chelmorton.

Listing NGR: SK1412871159