Church of St Michael and All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

A parish church of rubble stone with slate roofs, comprising a nave, chancel, south porch, and west gabled bellcote. The building displays coped shouldered gables throughout.

The west end features a substantial battered plinth and a pointed chamfered doorway with a plank door set beneath a gabled stone hoodmould and relieving arch. Two much-eroded carved stone heads are set in the wall above, with a single lancet window in the gable. A carved head corbel projects from beneath the south end of the gable coping, which is asymmetric, extending slightly further on the south side. The 19th-century bellcote contains two 13th-century bells.

The south porch has a coped gable and a fine 15th-century moulded pointed arch to its entry. Two benches inside rest beneath a restored 15th-century panelled roof with moulded wallplate and moulded ribs set to four-by-three open panels. The chamfered south doorway has a barred stop with stone voussoirs above and a plank door. A stoup is positioned in the right corner. An unusual cast-iron 19th-century plaque records a grant for repewing. A small two-light late medieval window to the left of the porch has segmental-pointed heads and indented spandrels. The window to the right is in Perpendicular style with a flat head, two lights, deep-set with ogee heads and a hoodmould featuring carved stops.

The south wall of the chancel contains a similar Perpendicular window; this wall appears to have been rebuilt in the 19th century. The east window is a plain two-light with cusped arched lights beneath a rough relieving arch. The north nave wall has a chamfered oak wallplate, a rebuilt buttress at the northeast corner, and two windows: the first contains a pair of cusped narrow lancets; the second is 19th-century Bath stone in Perpendicular style. The north chancel wall appears rebuilt, with a pier at its left end.

The interior is fine throughout. The nave ceiling is of late medieval design with moulded ribs and six-by-eight plaster panels, supported by moulded wallplates. The walls are of rubble stone. The nave west end has a segmental-pointed doorhead with deep splayed reveals to a lancet above. A segmental-pointed arch spans the south door. The nave south window displays uneven splays; the north windows have 19th-century surrounds raised for wall plaster. Two corbels project from the east wall beneath the apex.

The chancel arch is roughly pointed, chamfered and stopped at the level of the beam of a late medieval screen. This screen appears much altered, resting irregularly on two corbels with main mouldings positioned over the chancel arch. The beam continues to the wall on the left with simplified mouldings but stops just after the corbel on the right. Filled mortices along the top suggest former loft floor joists. The moulding is deeply undercut concave, flanked by beads with bead moulds above. The screen has two panels on each side of the entry; the side panels retain tracery with rosettes in the heads and ogee-moulded posts, though the centre tracery is mostly lost. Faded gold pattern painting appears on the posts and boards affixed to panels below the rails, likely 19th-century work. A plain beam sits above the screen.

The chancel has a three-sided plastered ceiling with two partly ceiled trusses featuring chamfered tie-beams and stepped hollow-moulded stops. A blocked opening appears on the north side. A small shelf or aumbry is set in the northeast angle. The east window has a chamfered depressed arched head with stone voussoirs. A communion rail with sturdy turned balusters dates to the late 17th century or early 18th century, comparable to similar work in Llangeview church.

Monuments include a west end sandstone plaque to John Jenkins (died 1727) and an eroded plaque to William Williams of Usk (died 1798), a north plaque to John Pollard (died 1786), and lettered floor slabs in the chancel. The octagonal font has been heavily retooled, with a concave underside, round shaft, and water-holding moulding to the base. It is enclosed by a two-sided screen, said to have previously enclosed a manorial pew. The top rail with pulvinated frieze is presumably 17th-century, but the ogee-moulded uprights and rails may date from the 15th to 16th centuries, with uprights grooved for tracery. Irregularities in the mouldings suggest reassembly; the corner post implies a corner site origin, though the timbers do not conform to surviving parts of the chancel screen. The interior arrangement comprises three-one-three bays to the north and three-three bays to the east. The 19th-century furnishings include bench pews, a plain timber pulpit removed from Kemeys Inferior church, and chancel stalls.