Church of St Michael

Details

ROCHFORD CP ROCHFORD SO 66 NW 3/31 Church of St Michael 18.4.66

GV II*

Parish church. C12, with early C14 alterations, restored mid-C19. Sandstone rubble, partly coursed and dressed with ashlar dressings and repairs. Plain tiled roofs with decorative ridge tiles and cross-finial at east end. Timber bell turret, weatherboarded with oak shingled spire. Three-bay nave with north and south doorways (blocked to north), south porch and west bell turret; two- bay chancel with north vestry. Nave: western end was rebuilt in C19. There is a 3-light west window with a hoodmould. The north elevation has an original round-headed light at its eastern end. The north doorway is weather-worn and projects 9 inches beyond the wall-face. It has a semi-circular head of two chevron moulded orders on large engaged shafts with rudimentary leaf capitals and chamfered enriched abaci. The tympanum is carved with a Tree of Life (the only surviving example of this motif in Worcestershire) with a semi-circular border of six-pointed stars and a lower edge enriched with a cable moulding. The south elevation has a pair of C19 cusped lancets at its eastern end, a cusped lancet in the C19 walling at the western end and an original round-headed light immediately west of the south porch. The porch is a C19 addition; it is timber- framed on a tall stone plinth with a steeply-pitched gabled roof and has a cusped pointed archway flanked by similar openings. The collar and tie-beam truss above the archway has boarded panels and is pierced with quatrefoils above and below the collar. There are three square panels in each side elevation. The C14 south doorway has an acutely pointed arch with a wide sunk moulding continued down the jambs. The west bell turret is of square plan and has three pointed arched louvred bell-chamber openings immediately beneath the eaves level in each face. The shingled broach spire has sweptewes, a finial and a weathervane. The chancel has a C19 east end window of three stepped lights with trefoil lights above, beneath a hoodmould. The central main light is cusped. The north elevation has an original round-headed light to the east of the vestry and the south elevation has a pair of cusped lancets, the jambs and rear arch of which are C14. and the rest C19. The C19 north vestry has a gabled roof, a pointed window at its north end and a pointed doorway in its east side. Interior: C12 chancel arch with a semi-circular arched head of two chevron-moulded orders on the west side, and with square jambs and moulded imposts continued to the side walls of the nave. The nave has a C19 ashlared arch-braced collar rafter roof, (some rafters in the east bay are probably C14), and the chancel has a C19 match- boarded barrel roof. There is a cusped, ogee-arched piscina, partly of C14 date. The stone font on marble columns and the three-sided timber pulpit are both C19 and in the vestry is the C17 oak altar table with turned legs. Above the blocked north doorway is a large hatchment with the Hanoverian royal arms. Memorials: in the nave is a memorial to John Tiylor, died 1760, with fine detail- ing; also a memorial to Ann Andrewse, died 1775, and an obelisk-shaped memorial to Sarah Downes, died 1802. Glass: the east window has very early Morris glass with an Adoration of the Child flanked by angels commemorating a death in 1863. (VCH, IV, p 318-9; BoE, p 251-2).

Listing NGR: SO6291868506

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

150718

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, AH, Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Worcester, (1924), 318-9
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Worcestershire, (1968), 251-2

End of official list entry

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