Parish Church of St Michael

Parish Church of St Michael, Minehead

This is a parish church dating from the 15th century, with an earlier south porch, heavily restored in 1880 and again in 1974. The building is constructed from blue lias and red sandstone with freestone dressings, beneath a 19th-century crested slate roof.

The church has a rectangular plan with a continuous 14th-century north aisle and chapel, and a small projecting chapel at the north-east corner. The east end displays two diminishing gables with stepped stone coping and crosses at their apexes. The largest gable (to the left) has an angled buttress at its corner; its centrepiece features a pointed-arched hoodmould over a 19th-century 4-light Perpendicular-style window with trefoil-headed lights, supported on a later buttress at the sill centre. The lower central gable to the north aisle has a pointed gauged stone arch over a hoodmould with figure stops holding shields, and contains a fine 4-light Perpendicular window with panel tracery. The small chapel gable to the right displays a pointed-arched casement-moulded hood over a 3-light Perpendicular window with cinque-foil heads to the main lights and trefoil heads to the upper lights.

The north side is built of red sandstone rubble with a crested slate roof and offset buttresses. The projecting north-east chapel has a rectangular dripmould over a 2-light 15th-century cusped ogee-headed window. The rear (west side) of this chapel, now a vestry, features a 19th-century brick stack. Adjacent to it, in the north wall of the north aisle, is a 15th-century window similar to that of the chapel. The main north aisle wall contains two 19th-century 3-light windows with geometric tracery, and a 15th-century Perpendicular 3-light west window with head stops to the hoodmould.

The large 15th-century tower is built of blue lias with deep red sandstone buttresses set back and offset, terminating below a crenellated parapet. It comprises three stages separated by moulded string courses. The stage below the parapet has gargoyles at the corners and centres. Four large belfry openings under 4-centred arches contain 3 lights with transoms and a quatrefoil head to each light. A leaded 2-light window high in the second stage of the north side is similar. The west door in the tower features a 4-centred pointed arch with casement moulding over a planked and studded door with an inserted door to the right leaf, flanked by crocketed niches. Above this is a moulded string course that rises to form a hoodmould over a large 15th-century 4-light window with Perpendicular tracery and an ogee trefoil head to each light. The south facade of the tower has a crocketed niche on the second stage flanked by shallow half-columns with round capitals and sunk panels, all supported by a course of ball-flower. An octagonal stair turret with small square pinnacles stands to the left. The south elevation, more intensively restored in the 19th century, contains two 19th-century pointed-arched 3-light windows to the east of the tower. The parapet merlons are ornamented with heraldic animal gargoyles at the string course.

The 15th-century south porch is constructed from mixed red sandstone and lias rubble, with 19th-century stepped stone coping to the gable, a slit window in the apex, and a chamfered pointed arch of blue lias through a wall approximately 1 metre thick. It is flanked by weathered buttresses—the left one parallel to the facade, the right one angled—and features 19th-century doors. To the right of the porch is a hoodmould over a 16th-century Perpendicular transomed 4-light window with panel tracery. Further right stands a 15th-century two-storey rectangular stair tower to the rood loft, having a double plinth and flat-arched panel-tracery windows without dripmoulds but with casement moulding in the arches and reveals. The front elevation shows one tall 2-light window with transom over a single-light window, while the returns have a single-light window with a cinquefoil ogee head at each stage.

The south side of the chancel is of red sandstone with steps leading up to a 15th-century small 4-centred arched planked door flanked by 19th-century 3-light pointed-arched windows with head stops to the hoodmoulds; each window has a medieval buttress to its right.

Interior

The nave and chancel, undivided, span 8 bays with 15th-century slim octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. The tower arch at the west end is heavily moulded. The chamfered arch to the chantry chapel in the north-east corner (now a vestry) is of massive oak. The vestry has a wagon roof with moulded ribs and bosses and 20th-century panelling to the east end, with arch-braces exposed elsewhere.

The early 15th-century octagonal font has a richly panelled stem and a ledge at the foot of the bowl with seated figures. The rood screen is a very late medieval example in the West Country tradition, spanning the nave and aisle with ribbed and panelled coving and sharply carved foliate friezes over 4-light sections with arches subdividing into 2 lights; the dado, with panels similar to the church windows, is restored. A 17th-century panelled pulpit stands on a stone plinth against the south wall.

To the left of the altar is a 15th-century chest tomb with 8 crocketed ogee-arched niches and an effigy of a priest holding a chalice, thought to be Richard Bruton, vicar from 1401 to 1406. He is accompanied by two angels at his head. The canopy, from the later 15th century with a panelled vault inside, originally bore 6 angel figures below fine gables.

The Fitzjames Missal of 1320 and a great chest bearing the coat of arms of Richard Fitzjames, vicar from 1485 to 1497, are displayed at the west end, along with three books bequeathed by Alexander Ewens, churchwarden in 1639. The north wall displays the coats of arms of Queen Anne and George II, and painted panelled boards with the Commandments, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer given by Robert Quirke in 1634 and 1637.