Church Of Saint Michael

Church of Saint Michael

This is a cruciform church with added side aisles, built in the late 12th century with significant alterations in the 15th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed of squared rubble ham stone with ashlar dressings. The roofs are a mixture of fish-scale and plain clay tiles over the nave, chancel and North Transept, with stone slates covering the South transept and lead over the aisles.

The church comprises a chancel of 2 bays, a nave of 3 bays plus crossing, aisles of 3 bays, and transepts of one long bay. The original central tower, which became unsafe, was replaced in 1790 by a new tower positioned at the North East corner.

The chancel features offset corner buttresses, a plinth and cross finial to the coping. The East window is a 19th-century copy of a former blocked 15th-century window, consisting of four lights with tracery beneath a pointed arch and pointed label. The North and South sides have 3-light windows in 4-centred recessed arches.

The South transept is relatively simple in design, with a 15th-century traceried 3-light window in a pointed arch recess in the South wall, and a 2-light 18th-century window in the East wall. The South aisle features a plinth, full-height offset buttresses and a plain parapet, with three 3-light 15th-century traceried windows under pointed labels. The North aisle is similar except for a crenellated parapet, and includes a simple porch at its centre bay with moulded pointed archways.

The North transept projects only slightly and contains a window matching that of the South aisle. At the West end is a plain moulded pointed arch doorway with 19th-century tracery above, and 15th-century traceried windows in pointed recessed arches to both aisles, with a label to the North aisle. The aisles and nave have angled corner buttresses, with the nave projecting slightly.

The tower of 1790 is arranged in three stages with offset corner buttresses to the top of the second stage. An octagonal stair turret on the South East corner rises taller than the rest of the tower. The tower features a tall plinth, string courses and a simple open arcaded balustrade with small pinnacles to the corners. The lowest stage contains a small pointed East doorway and a 3-light pointed window with double 'Y' tracery. The second stage has a 2-light pointed window with 'Y' tracery on the North face only. The third stage contains a similar window with baffles to the East, a blind window to the West, and on the North face a clock dial flanked by single-light round-arched windows with baffles.

Internally, the chancel features a timber ribbed and bossed barrel vault ceiling, with the remainder appearing to be a 19th-century rebuild. A wide pointed arch opens to the crossing. The transepts have semi-circular arches with classical imposts; the South transept features a plaster barrel vault ceiling with a stone cornice and cill-height panelling in box pews of 1790, with a coffer-panelled 16th-century arch into the South aisle. Old heraldic glass is preserved in the tracery of the South window. The North transept is similar but without panelling and pews. The North window, probably 19th-century, is set much lower and has a ribbed plaster vault with a hipped end and stone cornice.

The South aisle contains a late 13th-century arcade with circular columns and pointed arches. The North aisle has a 15th-century arcade with 4-hollow piers, and the entrance door is probably 15th-century with external tracery decoration. Above the door is a hatchment board dated 1690.

The church contains a 13th-century circular font with cable mould on a modern base. Two recumbent effigies are present: one in the South transept is much damaged, whilst the effigy of Lady Elizabeth Courtenay (died 1375) on the West wall is in better condition. Also on the West wall is a memorial tablet to T S Eliot, the poet and writer, whose ashes were interred in 1965.