13th century medieval church of St Michael & All Angels, Whitwell.
"The church of ST. MICHAEL stands on an elevated site at the west end of the village, and consists of chancel 23 ft. 6 in. by 14 ft., nave 40 ft. 3 in. by 15 ft. 9 in., with double bell-cote over the west gable, south aisle 9 ft. wide, and south porch. These measurements are all internal. The width across nave and aisle is 27 ft. 4 in.
The building is of rubble throughout, with highpitched roofs to the chancel, nave and porch, covered with modern red tiles. The aisle has a leaded lean-to roof. The walls are plastered internally and all the roofs are modern.
Although a church existed here at the time of the Domesday Survey (1086), the evidence of a Saxon origin for the present building, in the long-and-short work in the quoins at the south-east angle of the nave, is far from certain; the south-west angle is of normal construction. The nave probably represents an aisleless 12th-century church. About the middle of the 13th century the south wall was pierced by an arcade of three bays, and an aisle added on that side. The bell-cote is also of this period and the chancel may have been rebuilt on its present plan at this time, though it was considerably altered in the 14th century, when new windows were inserted and a new roof erected. New windows were also made in the aisle, and the north wall of the nave was heightened and provided with new windows, doorway and buttresses. There was a general restoration of the church in 1881, and in 1930 the chapel of Our Lady at the east end of the aisle was restored to its proper use.
The chancel is without buttresses, and at the west end the lower part of the north and south walls for a length of about 6 ft. appears to belong to the first building. The east window is modern, of three lights with reticulated tracery. In the south wall are two pointed 14th-century windows of two trefoiled lights, the easternmost being rather earlier in character; its hood-mould has notch-stops, while those of the other window are carved heads. Further west is a smaller much-restored pointed window of two trefoiled lights and large quatrefoil in the head, which, though its sill ranges with those of the other openings, may have served the purpose of a low-side window. Internally the opening has a wide rear arch, the moulding of which is carried down the jambs, and a hood-mould with headstops. A squint from the chapel in the aisle, directed towards the high altar, cuts through the western jamb of this window. At the west end of the north wall is a widely splayed singlelight trefoil-headed low-side window with rebated sill and chamfered rear arch, but the rest of the wall is blank. In the usual position on the south side is a trefoil-headed piscina recess with fluted bowl, and adjoining it a single sedile with rounded trefoiled head and wave-moulded jambs. In the wall above are indications of a blocked window. On the north side of the chancel, level with the floor of the sanctuary, is a small plain rectangular recess. Along the top of the side walls inside are moulded stone cornices, the upper member of which is enriched on the north side with alternate ball-flower and large dog-tooth, and on the south with ball-flower and other ornament, including heads, four-leaved flowers, and a single dog-tooth. The pointed chancel arch is of two chamfered orders, the inner continuous and the outer dying out, with hood-mould on the nave side only. The mortice holes for the lower rails of a screen, two on each side, remain in the inner faces of the jambs.
The nave arcade consists of three pointed arches of two chamfered orders, without hood-moulds, springing from octagonal pillars with moulded capitals and bases and from filleted keel-shaped responds. At the foot of the eastern respond is a floor drain with two large holes, apparently communicating with a stream from the well which gives its name to the village. The nave is lighted at the west end by a widely splayed uncusped lancet window, and on the north side by two 14th-century pointed windows of two trefoiled lights and quatrefoil in the head, one in each end bay. The blocked doorway has a continuous moulding. Above the easternmost window, high in the wall, is a blocked rectangular opening.
The aisle has pairs of angle buttresses with triangular mould heads and is lighted on the south side by three pointed windows, each of two trefoiled lights, two of which are east of the porch. Of these the easternmost has plate tracery and soffit cusping and the next is very little later in style, but that west of the porch is of more fully developed 14thcentury type. The 14th-century east window is a single-light cinquefoiled opening set high in the wall above the aisle altar, the piscina of which has a trefoil-headed recess and sexfoil bowl. Adjoining it is a small pointed aumbry, and on either side of the window is an image bracket. There was also an altar at the east end of the nave north of the chancel arch, the piscina of which, with trefoiled head, fluted bowl and wooden shelf, remains in the north wall. Another piscina, about 4 ft. west of the south doorway, with plain pointed recess and mutilated bowl, if in its original position, would indicate a former chapel at the west end of the aisle.
The south doorway is apparently of early 13th century date, with semicircular arch of two orders, the inner with a roll and fillet continued down the jambs as attached shafts below moulded imposts, and the outer widely chamfered on banded shafts with moulded bases and capitals enriched with nail-head. The doorway may have been originally an insertion in the 12th-century nave and moved outward when the aisle was added, but it is possible that, notwithstanding its earlier appearance, it is not chronologically anterior to the arcade. This is rendered the less unlikely from the fact that nail-head ornament also occurs in the outer doorway of the porch, which has a pointed arch of two chamfered orders, the outer continuous and the inner on half-round responds. On the western capital the nail-head is carried all round, but on the east side the capital proper is carved with small leaves, the nail-head ornament being confined to the outer portion of the same stone above the jambs. In the east wall of the porch is a roughly shaped loop cut in a single stone, and on the west side of the doorway two scratch dials. Over the east gable of the nave is a well preserved wheel-cross. The bell-cote is of simple design with separate coped gables and pointed openings of two chamfered orders with plain imposts, the whole on a square unbuttressed base. There are smaller arched openings facing north and south. Of the two bells the smaller is by Joseph Eayre of St. Neots, 1749, and the second is a medieval bell, probably of the early 15th century, inscribed In honore Sancti Eiudii.'
The bowl of the late 12th-century font was originally square, the sides ornamented with rudely incised patterns (crosses, arches, etc.), but the angles have been cut away, reducing the bowl to an irregular octagon. It stands on a modern circular stem and base and has a flat 17th-century cover.
The Jacobean oak pulpit has been restored and stands on a modern stone base; four of its six sides are panelled, but the cornice is new. The altar rails are also of the 17th century, but the contemporary altar table is now in the restored chapel.
On the north wall of the nave, to the east of the doorway, a small portion of old plaster with coloured decoration has been retained.
The quatrefoil of the south-west window of the chancel is filled with 14th-century glass depicting a Crucifixion beneath a canopy, upon a grisaille background of fructed oak, and there is also some old glass in the easternmost window of the south wall of the aisle. In the vestry is a dug-out chest, with modern lid.
The medieval altar slab is now in the floor of the chancel, used as a gravestone for Daniel Nailer, rector (d. March 1689–90), and in the nave are three large floor slabs, one apparently that of Richard Whitwell, the founder of the chantry, another with incised cross and bold Gothic lettering to one of the Flore family, and the third with a fragment of a 15th-century inscription. There is also a smaller slab with the indent of a half-length brass figure. In the chancel, before the altar, are the gravestones of Thomas Frere, rector (d. 1667), and two of his wives, and of John Isaac, rector (d. 1743), and, west of the rails, of Alexander Noel, esquire (d. 1667), and his wife. There is a wall tablet to Charles Spencer Ellicott, rector for sixty years (d. 1880), placed by his son, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
The plate consists of a cup and cover paten, the cup with only the maker's mark I.G., the paten with the London date-letter for 1570–71, and a breadholder of 1718–19. There are also a pewter paten and flagon.
The registers before 1812 are as follows: (i) baptisms and burials 1716–84; marriages 1716–54; (ii) baptisms and burials 1786–1812; (iii) marriages 1754– 1812."
SOURCE - (
visit link)