Church Of St Michael

The Church of St Michael is a Grade I listed building located in Stowe Nine Churches. The church features a Saxon west tower, with the main body of the church rebuilt around 1639 and again in 1859 by Philip Hardwick. The structure is made of coursed squared limestone with ironstone dressings and some brick, with roofs primarily covered in tiles and some in lead. The layout includes a chancel, nave, north and south nave and chancel aisles, a north chancel vestry, a south porch, and the west tower.

The east windows of the vestry and chancel have three lights with Decorated style tracery, while the remaining windows are two and three-light mullion windows with hood moulds. The nave and chancel feature crenellated parapets, while the aisles have plain parapets. The north door has a round arch with imposts, and the south door is in the Early English style with a nailhead hood mould set in a gabled porch. The south aisle extends across the south side of the west tower.

The west tower, which is of Saxon origin, consists of three stages and is constructed of plastered rubble with medieval battlements. The ground floor includes a blocked square-headed door with alternating upright and flat jambs, a partially blocked square-headed window with a hood mould above, and a carved stone that is likely part of a cross-shaft incorporated into the north-west angle. The first floor features an original double-splayed round-headed west window, with a datestone inscribed "1776" below, possibly marking the date of the tower's reinforcement with two iron bands. A string course at the belfry stage is interrupted by two-light medieval windows, flanked by pilaster strips on the west and east sides.

Inside, the chancel has a Jacobean reredos, with two bay arcades in the north and south aisles and three bay arcades in the nave. The nave and chancel have scissor-braced roofs. The Lady chapel in the south chancel aisle contains Jacobean screenwork with small niches on balusters, which were formerly part of the screen separating the nave and chancel. The church also houses fine 13th-century and early 17th-century chest tombs with effigies, the latter crafted by Nicholas Stone, along with 17th, 18th, and 19th-century wall monuments, including an ambitious wall monument to Thomas Turner, who died in 1714, featuring life-sized figures of the deceased and "Christian Faith".