Church of St Michael and All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This church comprises a red brick nave and west tower in Flemish bond with red sandstone quoins, together with a chancel of irregular Breidden dolerite, also dressed with sandstone quoins. The original building consisted of a rectangular nave and west tower; the chancel was added in 1848. The roof is slate with blue clay ridges between raised stone-coped gables.

The west tower is designed in the style of Robert Hooke, featuring a round-headed west door with raised keystone and springing blocks, a circular window to the gallery, and round-headed window openings to the clock and bell stages. The bell stage has openings on three faces. The original high crenellated parapet with corner spires was replaced between 1966 and 1974 by a clumsy pyramidal slate roof with wide boxed eaves.

The nave has two large lancets of two chamfered orders. The eastern window on the north side was replaced in the mid-19th century by a 2-light window with quatrefoil head. The chancel comprises 2 bays with inset corner buttresses and lancet windows linked with bands and moulded string courses. A triple lancet window occupies the east end. On the north side, a rectangular brick vestry with slate roof is set at right angles to the church, with a lean-to boiler house adjoining it. Both have Romanesque-style round-arched doors.

The interior nave spans 3 bays and has a 19th-century open rafter roof with king post trusses and double purlins. A west gallery, dated 1840, has a panelled Gothic front with openwork tracery, supported on two columns and wall brackets. 18th-century fielded-panelled box pews and matching wall dado extend towards the east. The floor is laid in red tiles, and the walls are plastered. Three steps lead up to the raised chancel. The chancel arch springs from impost columns with shaft rings and large foliate capitals, carrying a bowtell-moulded 2-centred arch of alternating red sandstone and limestone voussoirs. The chancel has an arch-braced roof. All windows feature similar banded stonework; the east window has internal shafts. An intersecting dog-tooth arcade at the east end rests on alternating waterleaf and palmette-capped demi-columns. On the south side, the eastern window's sill has been lowered as sedilia, and a piscina with quatrefoil bowl is present. The sanctuary floor has 19th-century Minton tiles and is divided off by a moulded pine rail on curved brackets.

The west gallery contains simple rustic oak benches and rails on a stepped floor.

Stained glass includes an east window dated 1900 and signed I W, probably the designer for Herbert Bryans (pupil of Kemp). The nave north-east window, dated 1883, depicts the Annunciation and is dedicated to M D Darwell. The north-west window, dated 1890, shows St Michael the Archangel and is dedicated to Rev Leicester D W Darwell, vicar from 1837 to 1890.

The font beneath the tower is 19th-century Bath stone, octagonal with carved panels. A brass eagle lectern is present. The first pew on the north side contains the altered remains of the original altar rail. The pulpit, located in the second pew on the north side, is 18th-century work comprising part hexagon with panelling and moulded cornice. On the wall to the rear, tall fluted pilasters on an oak board rise to a hexagonal dentilled tester with ogee top and carved finial.

Monuments include a Carrara marble tablet in the chancel to Mary D Darwell, dated 1882, and a tablet in the nave dated 1895 to D Davies, by Marshall.

A single 17th-century bell survives. A glass case in the chancel contains a linen cape with embroidered collar and hood, reportedly worn by Revd D W Darwell as the first of its kind in an English parish church. Darwell, a Cambridge man, was on intimate terms with the early Tractarians.