Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels

Heritage listing

Details SOWTON SOWTON LANE (west side) SX 99 SE 1/53 Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels I Parish church. Early C16 arcade, otherwise all of 1844-5 by John Hayward. Coursed red sandstone with Beer stone dressing; fishscale slate roof, with heavy coping to gable walls, with crosses at apexes. Early Perpendicular in style. West tower, nave, south porch, north aisle, chancel, north-east vestry. Exterior: West tower of 3 stages and plinth. Battlemented with corner pinnacles(now partially dismantled), with a stringcourse with gargoyles below the parapet. Angle buttresses with set-offs; south-west angle staircase with half-pyramidal roof, buttressed, and lit by small quatrefoil panels. 2-light pointed belfry openings. Trefoil headed lancets to all sides light bellringing chamber. Canopied statue in niche to south. 3-light west window. West door with plinth raised to act as hood mould. South side, 5 bays including the porch; 2-light windows divided by buttresses with set offs. Chancel, with 2 lancets divided by similar buttress; priest's door. Diagonal buttresses at east angles; 3-light east window. North-east vestry, separately roofed with prominent stack. 5 bays to north side of aisle, as south, but with no porch. Interior: early-C16 5-bay arcade, the west bay much narrower than the others; deep moulding to piers, and capitals with roses and shield-bearing angels, some of these very primitive in execution. All the rest is Hayward's. Open wagon roofs throughout, those to the nave and aisle possibly retaining some medieval bosses, and part of a wall plate. Complete set of 1840s bench ends, traceried with a variety of motifs in cusped roundels. Stone polygonal font, quatrefoil panels with pinnacled font cover. Pulpit, stone, polygonal, the stiles with finialed pinnacles,

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.