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The exterior of St Michael's is pretty. It sits in a verdant spot a little way outside the village, surrounded by a lush growth of trees and approached over a fine lawn - it was particularly lovely on the glorious early summer evening we visited, on the last day of May 2003. [Mark adds: we've since been back as I didn't get any decent pictures - these date from May 2006]
The little Perpendicular tower was restored very well in 1924, and very tall Perpendicular windows light the aisleless nave. The real joy is the interior, though. Despite the fact that Dowsing was here on the 15th April 1643 [Mark adds: as you work your way through this site you will come across this Nasty Puritan all too often alas - here his Journal records that 'We brake downe 16 superstitious pictures, and gave order to take downe crosses of the steple, and to levell the steps'. You can find out more about him via the links page] and that the chancel is a 1875 rebuilding, and the screen has been moved and hacked about with to fit in the new chancel arch, the nave has been untouched.
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As a result, it's almost entirely a prayerbook interior: plain whitewashed walls, with lovely dark wood fittings. The benches are solid, and the double decker pulpit is rather fine (incidentally blocking off the substantial rood-stair which has its original door visible at the top - I wonder when anyone last went through it?). Next to this huge pile of wood, slumped against the wall, is the metal carcass of a giant hourglass, the glass bulb sadly long gone - from the days when timing sermons so as not to annoy the lord of the manor was an important thing.
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In the tracery at the top of the nave windows there were some bits of glass depicting angels. Some of these are recognisable saints - (there's a figure I think must be either St George or St Michael - click on the image on the left to see more of them) but some appear to be representations of the orders of angels - I couldn't identify them all but I'm almost certain that one is a seraphim (with six wings and lots of eyes everywhere - St John really did have a very peculiar imagination).
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They are very nice, anyway, looking rather like Flemish engravings in black and white and gold. We thought that they might well be original, which makes them very rare indeed.
[Mark adds: In the chancel, hidden under a rug, is a fine brass of an unknown man, with small images of his eight sons and eight daughters round his feet. We didn't find him on our first visit, but I had a strong intuition that something was there and fortunately acted on it. First brass I ever saw with chest hair - there are a few curls of it peeping over the top of his splendid robe. ]
St Michael was open when we visited
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