Church of St Michael

Church of St Michael

A modest-sized church in Decorated style, consisting of an unusual and rather narrow west tower with a battlemented top stage, a nave with north and south aisles under carried-down roofs, a prominent south porch, and a relatively long chancel with a north vestry. The tower is constructed of a quartz conglomerate locally known as "pudding stone", with dressed quoins and an ashlar top stage; the rest is mostly snecked reddish sandstone, with green slate roofs.

At the west end the tower is flanked by buttresses at the junctions of the nave and aisles, and a deep chamfered string-course carries round all three sides about 1 metre above ground level. Immediately above this in the southwest corner of the tower is a very large quoin stone with two lines of incised medieval lettering, now almost illegible but transcribed as "+ ORATE PRO GODEFRE / DO ET IOHANNE +". The tower is of three unequal stages, the first extending to almost half the full height, with the west side displaying very unusual offsets on three levels below the top, where a classical-style moulded cornice carries a slightly oversailing belfry stage. The first stage has a square-headed lancet window; the second stage has a smaller one; and the belfry stage has a two-centred arched two-light window in each side, with stone-louvred trefoil-headed lights and a cinquefoil in the head. At a high level on either side of the tower is a small trefoil-headed one-light window lighting the nave, and a similar window lights the west end of each aisle at a lower level.

The nave and aisles are three bays in length, the roof swept down to a low level on both sides. In the centre of the south side is a large medieval gabled porch with a two-centred arched outer doorway with a moulded surround and a triangular-arched inner doorway with similar surround. Each of the other bays has a square-headed two-light mullioned window, and aligned with these on the roof are steeply-gabled two-light dormers with trefoil-headed lights and trefoils in the heads. The north side has similar fenestration except that there is a three-light window in the centre and dormers aligned with that and the window to the east. The west end of each aisle has an unusual three-light window with sloped head parallel with the roof line. The chancel has a trefoil-headed one-light window near each end, a cinquefoil-headed priest door close to that on the left, and a restored three-light east window with foiled spherical-triangle tracery in the head.

Interior

The interior is wide, low and relatively dark. Three-bay north and south arcades feature generously-proportioned two-centred arches in an unusual style: the piers are cruciform in section with rebated convex moulding to the eight corners and without capitals, the moulding continued round the two-centred arches. The north arcade was blocked until the 1870s restoration, and in place of the west arch there is now a three-light organ-chamber window with slender shafts and crocketed canopies. The nave has a Victorian timbered roof with arch-braced collar trusses. The chancel arch is similar to the aisle arches but larger. The chancel has its floor raised by two steps, and the sanctuary by a further three steps; a wagon roof; and commemorative plaques on both sides.

The roof timbers and the benches throughout are of pitch pine.

In the south aisle to the left of the doorway is a Norman tub font; to the right a Victorian marble font by Pritchard with water lilies and passion flowers carved on the rim and netted fish below, the pedestal surrounded by green and red marble shafts.

A large inscription on the wall to the west of the doorway reads: "To the Glory of God this church of St Michael and All Angels, built AD 1208, was reconstructed Aug.4th AD 1876 / Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset 8th Duke of Beaufort KG, Patron / B.W.Everett BA, Rector / O.A.Wyatt Esqr / W.W.Oakley Esqr. Church Wardens".

One of the plaques on the north wall of the chancel commemorates the Reverend Henry George Talbot (died 1867), who served as rector of this parish with Cwmcarvan for 42 years. He was the eldest son of the Very Reverend Charles Talbot, Dean of Salisbury, and of the Lady Elizabeth Somerset, daughter of Henry 5th Duke of Beaufort, K.C.; he was married to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of the Honourable Sir William Ponsonby, K.C.B.; and is buried at All Hallows St Giles in the County of Dorset.