Parish Church of St Michael

Parish Church of St Michael

This church is constructed of random sandstone rubble with slated roofs. It is a building of several periods, with significant medieval fabric alongside 19th-century restoration work in Early English style.

The fenestration dates mainly from the 19th-century restoration. Most windows are Early English style single lancets, some of which incorporate fragments of 13th-century window dressings. The east window consists of three 19th-century lancets, stepping up to the centre with roll-moulded hoodmould. On the south side of the chancel are two 13th-century lancets (restored) with Bathstone dressings and earlier limestone fragments. A gabled Kemeys Tynte chapel projects at the junction of chancel and nave on the south side.

The Kemeys Tynte chapel contains a two-light, early 16th-century east window which appears to be re-set, with arched heads, hollow chamfered mullions, sunk spandrels and a later hoodmould. Its south elevation has a three-light, early 16th-century window with sunk spandrels and hollow chamfer with square hoodmould over, beneath a flat relieving arch. A contemporary square sundial is positioned above this window.

The west elevation of the chapel has a round-headed doorway retaining chamfered jambs to its base, with a replaced early 19th-century round-head featuring dressed keystones.

The south elevation of the nave features a central gabled porch with 19th-century cusped bargeboard and an obtusely pointed outer door with voussoired head. Small lights with restored cusped heads appear on the east and west elevations of the porch. To the east of the porch is a single restored lancet and a 19th-century three-light traceried window in Decorated style. To the west of the porch is a matching 19th-century traceried window with a plain buttress to its left.

The west tower is of 13th and 14th-century date with a 15th-century embattled parapet rising from a corbel table with crocketted pinnacles to each corner. The tower has a pronounced batter to its base. Each face displays restored two-light louvred belfry windows with cusped heads beneath a corbel table set beneath a relieving arch. The west tower doorway is two-centred with complexly moulded 15th-century jambs and roll-moulded hoodmould over. A three-light 19th-century window occupies an original opening to the south-east corner with cusped head.

The north side of the nave has a single restored lancet at either end, with single plain buttresses to either end. The north side of the chancel shows evidence of a 13th-century priest's doorway at the west end (now blocked), with a single, shorter restored lancet offset to the east end.

Interior features include a 15th-century chancel arch and west tower arch, both of two orders with plain chamfered jambs. The chancel roof is 15th-century with collar, partially restored. The nave roof is a 19th-century barrel vault with moulded ribs and gilded bosses. A 15th-century tower stair doorway at the south-west corner of the nave has two-centred moulding with plain chamfers and bullnose stops.

To the south-east corner of the sanctuary is an Early English twin lancet aumbry with plain chamfered jambs. On the north side of the chancel are three round-headed doorways, now blocked, with voussoired relieving arches over, representing at least two and possibly three phases of construction.

The font is said to be of Flemish origin, probably 17th-century, with acanthus decoration to the base of the bowl supported on a pedestal representing the Tree of Life with an entwined serpent of Wisdom. The tower retains a set of early 18th-century bells and frame.

The Kemeys Tynte chapel contains a number of 18th and 19th-century family memorials and an alabaster memorial in Jacobean style with a tablet dated 1686, flanked by Ionic columns and a central tablet surrounded by strapwork.

A 13th-century altar slab with consecration crosses survives. A fragment of late-medieval plasterwork retaining an early fresco is present on the window reveal on the north side of the chancel. Remaining fittings date from the late 19th-century restoration.

The graveyard contains a memorial to Elizabeth Mackie, first wife of Rudolf Hess's father, positioned to the south-east of the porch.