Area 4.1 – Transcript of St Michael and All Angels Church

The Norman Church of St Michael and All Angels Stewkley has looked over the village from its central position since about 1150 AD and was constructed using locally won limestone rubble from the Dunton Road quarry, ironstone and flints with finer quality dressed limestone from Oxfordshire.

Sir Nikolas Pevsner described it as “ possibly the finest example of original Norman ecclesiastical architecture in England”. The Church is a typical three-cell Romanesque structure with a nave, central tower and a square ended sanctuary/chancel. It survives as one of only three Norman churches of the same style and date, without having serious alteration to their original footprint.

Externally one’s attention is drawn to the massive 57 foot high tower and the typically Norman semi-circular interlaced blind arcading.

Gargoyles, which project from the cornice above the arcading, include symbols of the four evangelists. The magnificent West front is elaborately decorated, with its differently ornamented pillars and arched doorway flanked by blind arches with chevron motif.
The East window with its blind arches either side, surmounted by chevron decoration, is also of particular interest.

Upon entering the church, the eye is drawn immediately to the Chancel arch, with its 14 foot span. Note the frieze surmounted with the same chevron motif consisting of 37 carvings of the beak-head type. Note also the string course consisting of irregular indented mouldings, cut in situ, which runs round the church, both inside and out, at a height of 8 feet.
The Sanctuary has an important quadripartite stone rib-vaulted Norman ceiling.

St Michael’s was conservatively restored in 1862 by the eminent Victorian architect, George Street. The roofs were restored to their original Norman pitches, the small oculus window added to the West gable and stone buttresses at the Sanctuary corners. Street himself designed the neo-Norman pulpit and the exotic Sanctuary reredos, added new pine pews and employed Messrs Clayton and Bell to redecorate the Sanctuary vaulted ceiling and to install a new stained glass East window.
Between 2000 and 2006 and again in 2012, a modern programme of conservation work took place to conserve and replace eroded ashlar and rubble limestone and to re-point the external walls throughout the church with lime mortar to permit the ancient fabric to breathe.

There is a Stewkley Local History Group booklet with more comprehensive detail available on the SLHG website.

When walking in Stewkley please set aside time to visit this church which has been the centre of worship for Stewkley folk for over 8 centuries!