Church Of St Michael And All Angels

The Church of St Michael and All Angels is an Anglican parish church. Its tower dates to the 15th century, with the rest of the building rebuilt in 1857-1860 under the direction of James Mountford Allen. The church is constructed from local lias and Ham stone ashlar and near-ashlar, with rubblework in the chancel and north aisle, all set beneath plain clay tiled roofs with stepped coped gables. The building incorporates a four-cell plan, comprising a two-bay chancel, a three-bay nave and north aisle, a north-east organ chamber, a south porch, and a west tower.

The chancel features a plinth and buttresses to the south-east corner, with a 3-light Geometric pattern window with a plain label. In the south wall are a pair of cusped lancets without a label, and a simply moulded pointed-arched doorway towards the east. The organ chamber lacks a plinth and buttresses, having a 2-light window with quasi-plate tracery and plain cusped lancets on the north side, alongside a 20th-century boilerhouse partially sunk into the north wall. The north aisle has angled corner and central buttresses, and two 3-light windows in a 13th-century style, with flat heads and cinquefoil-cusped windows within moulded recesses and without labels. A 2-light Geometric style window, also without a label, is found in the west wall.

The nave has a single buttress to the south-east corner and three 2-light windows in a 15th-century style, one to the west and two to the east of the south porch. The porch has angled corner buttresses and an apparently reused 15th-century doorway with hollow-moulded pointed arches. The inner doorway has a moulded pointed arch within a rectangular recess featuring leaf-carved spandrels. The tower is in three stages with buttresses, diagonally-set pilasters with pinnacles, and crenellated parapet. Gargoyles are positioned at the corners near the top. A stair turret, octagonal in plan, rises slightly above the tower, with pinnacles on all angles. The west door is a simple moulded pointed archway without a label, above which is a 3-light window (restored and releaded in September 1986). Fragments of 15th-century carved figures are found high in the south-east corner of the first stage, one within a canopied recess. Stage two has a rectangular leaded light in the west face, while the third stage has 2-light, traceried windows within hollowed recesses on all faces.

The interior’s work is almost entirely from the 19th century, featuring timber rib and plaster panel barrel-vault ceilings, a 15th-century tower arch, and an 18th-century communion rail with turned balusters. A copy of Raphael's "Madonna and Child" hangs in the north aisle, acquired in 1901. A tub font with a tulip bowl, possibly from the earliest church, is present; the first recorded rector was in 1175.