Church Of St Michael And All Angels

The Church of St Michael and All Angels is an Anglican parish church largely dating to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. It was restored in the 1850s and 1899. The church is constructed of coursed and squared rubble with slate roofs, freestone dressings, and coped verges, topped with cruciform finials. It comprises a nave, chancel, north and south porches (the latter now a vestry), and a west tower. The architectural styles are Decorated and Perpendicular.

The two-stage embattled west tower has diagonal buttresses to the lower stage and a slated pyramidal roof with a weathercock made by Messrs. Thompson of Bridgwater in 1818. A polygonal embattled stair turret rises above, topped with a finial. The bell chamber windows are two-light openings with wooden grilles. A clock, featuring gilded Roman numerals, is set into the north side. The west window is triple-light, and the doorway has a depressed-arch head with a ribbed and studded door.

The three-bay nave has two 2-light windows dating to the 14th century on the south side, and a 2-light 13th-century window and a 15th-century window on the north side. The latter window is in a slight projection, likely representing a former rood stair. The chancel has two broad lancet windows with cusped heads on the south side, along with a priest’s door. To the north are two 14th-century 2-light windows with renewed tracery. The three-light east window is of approximately 1500 type and is heavily restored, with panels decorated with quatrefoils and shields.

The gabled north porch has a benched interior with a flagstone floor, a 13th-century doorway, and a 15th-century traceried door. The gabled former south porch was converted into a vestry in 1899, when the doorway was blocked and replaced with a 2-light window.

Internally, the church has plastered walls and flagstone floors, with encaustic tile paving in the chancel. A moulded Perpendicular tower arch, consisting of two orders, stands opposite a mutilated moulded chancel arch. The nave features a plastered wagon roof with thin ribs and an ornamental wall plate, dating from the 15th/16th centuries. The chancel’s wagon roof, also dating from the 15th/16th centuries, has undergone 19th-century restoration and embellishment. The chancel windows have rere-arches. The vestry has stone benches and an unceiled wagon roof (15th/16th century) with a cable-moulded wallplate. A 15th-century door opens onto a 12th-century doorway. A medieval niche is located adjacent to the south of the chancel arch. A collection of good 16th- and 17th-century carved bench ends are present, including one dated 1621, alongside some late 19th-century reproductions. A chest is dated 1730. Later additions include a stone pulpit, a font with cover, a rood screen, a brass lectern, a stone reredos, an altar table dated 1621, and a mid-to-late 19th-century organ. There are six bells, two recast in 1899, with the remainder believed to be earlier. Six windows contain mid-19th-century stained glass. A matrix of a former brass is set within the floor.