Church of St Michael

Wide, low and relatively dark. Three-bay N and S arcades of generously-proportioned 2-centred arches in an unusual style: the piers are cruciform in section with rebated convex moulding to the 8 corners, and without capitals, the moulding continued round the 2-centred arches. The N arcade was blocked until the 1870s restoration, and in place of the W arch there is now a 3-light organ-chamber window with slender shafts and crocketed canopies. The nave has a Victorian timbered roof with arch-braced collar trusses. The chancel arch is similar to the aisle arches but larger. The chancel has its floor raised by 2 steps, and the sanctuary by a further 3 steps; a wagon roof; and commemorative plaques on both sides. The roof timbers and the benches throughout are of pitch pine. In the S aisle to the left of the doorway is a Norman tub font; to the right a Victorian marble font (by Pritchard) with water lilies and passion flowers carved on the rim and netted fish below, the pedestal surrounded by green and red marble shafts. A large inscription on the wall to the W of the doorway reads "To the Glory of God this church of St Michael and All Angels, built AD1208, was reconstructed Aug.4th AD 1876 / Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset 8th Duke of Beaufort KG, Patron / B.W.Everett BA, Rector / O.A.Wyatt Esqr / W.W.Oakley Esqr. Church Wardens". One of the plaques on the N wall of the chancel commemorates the Reverend Henry George Talbot (d.1867), for 42 years rector of this parish with Cwmcarvan; eldest son of the Very Reverend Charles Talbot, Dean of Salisbury, and of the Lady Elizabeth Somerset, daughter of Henry 5th Duke of Beaufort, K.C.; married to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of the Honourable Sir William Ponsonby, K.C.B.; buried at All Hallows St Giles in the County of Dorset.

A building of modest size in Decorated style, consisting of an unusual and rather narrow W tower with a battlemented top stage, nave with N and S aisles under carried-down roofs, a prominent S porch, and a relatively long chancel with a N vestry. The tower is constructed of a quartz conglomerate locally known as "pudding stone", with dressed quoins, and an ashlar top stage; the rest mostly of snecked reddish sandstone, with green slate roofs. At the W end the tower is flanked by buttresses at the junctions of the nave and aisles, and a deep chamfered string-course carries round all 3 about 1m above ground level. Immediately above this in the SW corner of the tower is a very large quoin stone with 2 lines of incised medieval lettering (now almost illegible but transcribed by Bradney as " + ORATE PRO GODEFRE / DO ET IOHANNE +"). The tower is of 3 unequal stages, the first extending to almost half the full height, the W side with very unusual offsets on 3 levels below the top, where a classical-style moulded cornice carries a slightly oversailing belfry stage. The 1st stage has a square-headed lancet, the 2nd stage has a smaller one, and the belfry stage has a 2-centred arched 2-light window in each side, with stone-louvred trefoil-headed lights and a cinquefoil in the head. At a high level on either side of the tower is a small trefoil-headed 1-light window to the nave, and a similar window lights the W end of each aisle at a lower level. The nave and aisles are 3 bays in length, the roof swept down to a low level on both sides. In the centre of the S side is a large medieval gabled porch which has a 2-centred arched outer doorway with a moulded surround, and a triangular-arched inner doorway with similar surround. Each of the other bays has a square-headed 2-light mullioned window, and aligned with these on the roof are steeply-gabled 2-light dormers with trefoil-headed lights and trefoils in the heads. The N side has similar fenestration except that there is a 3-light window in the centre and dormers aligned with that and the window to the east. The W end of each aisle has an unusual 3-light window with sloped head parallel with the roof line. The chancel has a trefoil-headed 1-light window near each end, a cinquefoil-headed priest door close to that on the left, and a restored 3-light east window with foiled spherical-triangle tracery in the head.