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Parish Church of:
Michaelstow
The church of St. Michael is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style, with some modern additions at the east end and on the south side, consisting of chancel with south aisle of one bay and a half, nave of four bays, aisles, south porch and a battlemented western tower of three stages, 56 feet high, with a staircase turret on the north side and pinnacles, and containing 3 bells, the first of which has an invocation to St. Margaret; the others are dated respectively 1739 and 1750; inside the north wall of the chancel is a pierced quatrefoil, and outside a small arch probably once belonging to a piscine: the east window of the south aisle once contained fragments of old strained glass, representing the later scenes of Our Saviour's life, with the legend “Hic ductus est ante Pilatu':” the font has an octagonal basin of Perpendicular date, but the base is Norman: in the church are monuments to Philip Mountsteven, ob. Nov. 1660, and Honor, wife of Richard
Mountsteven, ob. June, 1654; Jane (Killiow), wife of Thomas Merrifield, gent. ob. 26 March, 1662; Joseph Mayow, gent, ob. Aug. 1689 and Margery Symons, ob. 28 Jan. 1629; in the churchyard are memorials to the Brodes, of Trenowith, in this parish (1577-82), and to the families of May (1656-61), Lower (1724-47) and Hocken (1770-1837); there is also a cross erected in memory of the Rev. John Kingdon B.A. 21 years rector, d. 21 Oct. 1870: the chancel was restored about 1868; the restorations begun in 1870 was completed in 1889at a cost of £300, under the direction of Messrs. Hine and Odgers, architects, and comprise the restoration of fifteen original seats with carved ends, the substitution of oak benches in place of deal pews, and of oak stalls with traceried fronts for pitch pine fittings in the chancel: an oak pulpit on a granite base and a reredos have also been erected; the church will seat 150 persons: the churchyard cross, the shaft of which, 9 feet in length
had formed part of a flight of steps leading up to the churchyard from the village green, has been restored and re-erected. The register of baptisms dates from the year 1682'; marriages, 1548; burials, 1544, but are in part defective.
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