St Michael's Church is a redundant Anglican church in the village of Cotham,

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

, England. The building dates back to the 12th century.

Status and position

The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, and is under the care of the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. The church stands in a now isolated position in a field, set well back from the road.

History

St Michael's Church originated in the 12th century, with additions and alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries. The tower and the west part of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

were demolished in the later part of the 18th century. The church was partly rebuilt in about 1832 and the

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

added in 1890. Though the church was declared redundant on 23 August 2004 and

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 19 December 1989, it continues to be used occasionally for worship.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is constructed in coursed stone

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

with ashlar dressings, and it has a tiled roof. Its plan consists of a nave and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

under a single roof, a south porch, and a

at the east end. The bellcote has a pyramidal roof. Along the sides of the church are

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. At the west end is a two-light window. The north wall contains a door and two three-light windows, and in the south wall there are four three-light windows. The east window also has three lights. Some of the windows contain Decorated

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

, and in others the tracery is

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It ca ...

. Above the entrance to the porch is a coped

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

, and a stone inscribed with 1830.

Interior

Inside the church, to the east of the door is a 14th-century

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...

. In the west wall are five corbels. The upper two are plain and suggest the position of a former gallery. The lower three have

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

carvings of faces. The font is octagonal and dates from the 14th century. Also dating from the 14th century are two memorials in the south wall that are partly hidden by the wall and the raised floor.

External feature

On the east side of the church is a 19th-century

stone wall containing iron gates and re-used 14th-century

gargoyle In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls ...

s. This is designated as a Grade II listed edifice.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotham, St Michael's Church Grade II* listed churches in Nottinghamshire Church of England church buildings in Nottinghamshire English Gothic architecture in Nottinghamshire 12th-century church buildings in England Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust