Church Of St Michael

Church of St Michael

This stone church dates from the 12th to 17th centuries, constructed of sandstone rubble with Westmorland slate roofs. It comprises a west tower, a nave with aisles, a south porch, and a chancel with a north aisle containing a chapel and vestry.

The tower is 14th-century work, featuring offset angle buttresses and a projecting stair turret to the south with six-light vents and a bench mark on the west face of the projection. The ground floor has a two-light west window. The first floor carries a clock on the west face, with a single-light window with a trefoil head under a flat hood to north and south. The second floor has belfry openings of two lights on all four sides, each with trefoil heads and a blind quatrefoil in plate tracery above. The tower is topped by an embattled parapet corbelled out on heads, with gargoyles depicting goblins holding spouts and a weather-vane on the north-west corner.

The south porch is late 14th-century with a gable, offset diagonal buttresses with short pinnacles, and a doorway with a continuous hollow chamfer and label. Above the doorway is a weathered niche and a gable cross, with a corbelled stone roof. The interior contains stone benches and a barrel vault. A 13th-century doorway with shafts and hollow mouldings features continuous 'green man' capitals.

The 13th-century south aisle has two south windows of two lights with trefoil heads, linked by a sill band. A corbel table with heads and lion masks runs along the wall, with gargoyles below. A two-light west window and a three-light east window with trefoil heads under a flat lintel complete the aisle.

The north aisle dates to around 1620 and comprises three bays with two windows under straight-sided pointed heads and one window with three trefoiled lights under a flat lintel. A north doorway has a pointed arch set in a square lintel, above which is a panel with medieval lettering.

The chancel spans three bays divided by offset buttresses. 14th-century windows include one single-light and two two-light examples with quatrefoils above, all under labels with medieval heads on stops and a continuous sill band. The east end features a four-light Perpendicular window with offset buttresses.

The north chancel aisle has a vestry with an east window of two lights with plate tracery, and a north chapel window of three lights with five cusps under straight-sided pointed heads.

Internally, the nave's north arcade dates to the mid 12th century, with round piers, scallop capitals and round arches of two orders. The south arcade is 13th-century Early English, with circular piers with plain bell capitals and pointed arches of two chamfered orders. The 14th-century tower arch has two chamfered orders springing from male figures. An Early English chancel arch features heads on label stops on both faces and Early English corbels. A double-chamfered pointed arch connects the chancel to the north chapel, with a 14th or 15th-century screen set into the opening. A 14th-century pointed-arched doorway to the vestry has a continuous chamfered moulding.

In the chancel north wall is an aumbry with a trefoil under an ogee arch. The chancel south wall contains a piscina with a trefoil under an ogee arch and a stone bench sedile. On the nave south wall, roll moulding adorns the arris of the south doorway, and a sill band of semi-circular section with whorl and animal stops runs along the wall. A stone with a cross-head is set in the east wall of the vestry. A medieval tomb-chest in the north chapel commemorates a Fitz Randall of Spennithorne Old Hall, alongside two medieval bench ends.

The south aisle east wall displays a medieval corbel for an image with male and female heads. The south aisle west wall contains a medieval wall painting depicting Father Time. The south aisle south wall bears a royal coat of arms dated 1780 and a wall memorial to the Hon. Anne Scroope (died 1694) and Francisca Scroope (died 1731). The chancel south wall holds a wooden wall memorial to Fr. Wyvill (died 1649).