St Michael and St Martin's Church is a
historic Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
church in
Eastleach Martin,
Gloucestershire, England under the care of
The Churches Conservation Trust.
It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I
listed building.
The church stands close to the
River Leach which divides Eastleach Martin from its twin village of
Eastleach Turville. Eastleach Turville's
Church of St Andrew stands only 180 metres away from the Church of St Michael and St Martin.
[
]
History
The church was founded in the 12th century by Richard Fitzpons, whose son granted it to Great Malvern Priory
Great Malvern Priory in Malvern, Worcestershire, England, was a Benedictine monastery (c. 1075 – 1540) and is now an Anglican parish church. In 1949 it was designated a Grade I listed building. It is a dominant building in the Great Malvern ...
in 1120. The chancel was added to the church during the following century, followed by the transept in the 14th century.[ In the early 19th century the churchman John Keble, later a founding member of the ]Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of O ...
, was curate
A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...
to the church. The nearby clapper bridge crossing the River Leach is named "Keble's Bridge" after him.[ The church was ]restored
''Restored'' is the fourth
studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings.
Track listing
Standard release
Enhanced edition
Deluxe gold edition
Standard ...
in 1880 and re-roofed in 1886.vested
In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...
in The Churches Conservation Trust on 24 November 1982.
Architecture
The church is constructed in random rubble limestone, with a stone slate roof. Its plan consists of a nave with a south porch and a north transept, a chancel and a west tower. The south doorway dates from the 12th century and is in Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
style with a rounded arch. The porch dates from the following century, and has a pointed arch, a gable, and a sundial
A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...
finial
A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature.
In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...
. In the east wall of the porch is a niche
Niche may refer to:
Science
*Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development
*Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species
*Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...
with a trefoil head. To the right of the porch is a 13th-century two-light window. In the north wall of the nave is a square-headed blocked doorway, and a blocked window with a pointed arch to its right at a higher level. The tower is in two stages with a hipped roof and a tall weathervane finial. It has diagonal buttresses, and a Perpendicular west window. In the upper stage, the bell openings are small and square. There is a stair turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
set at an angle on the north side of the tower. The transept has a five-light north window and three-light windows on the east and west sides; all these windows have Decorated tracery. On the gable at the east end of the nave are the remains of a bellcote. The east window of the chancel has three lights with Early English tracery, above which is a niche. The north and south walls of the chancel contain lancet window
A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...
s.[ The interior of the church is limewashed. It contains a piscina with a trefoil head, a hexagonal timber ]pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...
with Jacobean panelling, and an octagonal stone font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
dating from the 15th century. Some of the windows contain fragments of medieval stained glass.[
]
External features
There are two structures in the churchyard that have been designated as Grade II listed buildings. One is the base and shaft of a cross dating from the 14th century. The other is a pair of tombs dating from the early 18th and early 19th centuries.
See also
* List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in the English Midlands
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastleach Martin, Saints Michael and Martin
Grade I listed churches in Gloucestershire
Church of England church buildings in Gloucestershire
12th-century church buildings in England
Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust