Church Of St Michael And All Angels

The Church of St Michael and All Angels is a parish church largely dating to the 15th century, with 19th-century restoration work. Constructed primarily from local greensand stone with ashlar dressings, it features stone slate roofs with coped gables and cross finials. The church’s layout consists of a two-bay chancel, a three-bay nave and north aisle, a west tower, a south porch, and a northeast corner vestry.

The chancel has a plinth but no buttresses, an east window with three lights from the 14th century and intricate tracery under a pointed arch, and two flat-headed two-light windows with labels and square stops in the south wall, one with less intricate tracery on the north wall. The north aisle has diagonal corner buttresses and two-light windows with deep, hollowed reveals and labels on its north wall. A three-light window in a 15th-century style with pointed arched tracery is set into its west wall. The nave has two traceried two-light windows matching the north aisle; a small porch with a stone tile roof stands between them. A plain circular arch with an 18th-century panelled and spiked gate is above the porch, and within the arch are two recesses containing sculptures, one depicting the Virgin and Child—likely from the 15th century and originally the head of the churchyard cross—and the other, of the same age, possibly of Italian origin. The inner porch features a plastered barrel vault ceiling and stone bench seats. The inner doorway is Norman, heavily restored, and displays a carved lintel, plain tympanum, and chevron and roll mouldings.

The west tower has two stages, with a deep plinth, string courses, corner diagonal buttresses with offsets, corner gargoyles, and a battlemented coping. A low-set west door is surrounded by a moulded four-centered arch. Above the door is a three-light, traceried, pointed arched window with a label. A small two-light window with tracery panelled solid heads and no labels is positioned above. A hexagonal plain stair turret, rising two-thirds of the tower’s height and capped with a stepped stone roof, is located on the northeast corner.

The interior, mostly of 19th-century character, was reshaped in the 1800s and again in 1848 when the north aisle was added. The chancel features arched braced roof trusses, a cusped arch piscina, and a plain segmental pointed chancel arch. The nave has tie-beam trusses with arched infills and corbel brackets, with three oak and gilded bosses taken from Stavordale Priory (in Charlton Musgrove). The arcading is of 15th-century style, and the tower arch is a plain two-order pointed arch. Fittings are mostly 19th century; the font is probably from the 11th century, exhibiting a square scalloped bowl on a circular shaft and square base. A hatchment board of George IV from 1820 is positioned above the chancel arch. The pews are 20th century, with bench ends carved by Mrs. Clemency Angell in 1927. Some 15th-century glass remains in a south wall window. Four bells are present, the tenor bell cast by George Purdue in 1584, which is noted as his first cast. Stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops are present.