The Church of St Michael the Greater is a late- Georgian

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

church in

Stamford, Lincolnshire Stamford is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber ...

, which stands on the south side of Stamford High Street on the site of an earlier,

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

predecessor. The church is a Grade II listed building as, separately, is the churchyard wall. It was called

St Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

the Greater to distinguish it from ‘St Michael in Cornstall’, a church elsewhere in Stamford.

History as a church

The site – at the heart of the medieval town – suggests an early, perhaps even pre-

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 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

date for the foundation of the church but it is not until the middle of the twelfth century that it appears amongst property owned by

Crowland Abbey Crowland Abbey (historically often spelled Croyland Abbey; Latin: ) is a Church of England parish church, formerly part of a Benedictine abbey church, in Crowland in the English county of Lincolnshire. It is a Grade I listed building. Histor ...

. It is possible St Michael's was founded by Crowland.John S Hartley and Alan Rogers, ''The Religious Foundations of Medieval Stamford''. Stamford Survey Group Report 2. University of Nottingham, 1974. The Medieval church comprised a

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 ...

with north and south aisles and a

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

with north and south chapels and was a frequent meeting place in Medieval Stamford of ecclesiastical courts and corporation meetings. It was extensively altered in the fifteenth century and again in the seventeenth at which time its western tower was made of wood, until 1761 when replaced in stone. The church survived until 1832 when it collapsed after the Rector, the Rev. Charles Swan, removed a number of internal pillars from the nave apparently for aesthetic reasons.Martin Smith. ''Stamford Then & Now''. Paul Watkins, 1992. The current building, designed by John Brown of Norwich was built in Ketton stone over 1835-6 largely on all fours with the earlier church, in Early English style. It was based on the style of the

Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chape ...

Salisbury Cathedral Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Church of England, Anglican cathedral in the city of Salisbury, England. The cathedral is regarded as one of the leading examples of Early English architecture, ...

and greatly applauded by the ''

Stamford Mercury The ''Stamford Mercury'' (also the ''Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury'', the ''Rutland and Stamford Mercury'', and the ''Rutland Mercury'') based in Stamford, Lincolnshire, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, claims to be "Britain's oldest cont ...

'' at the time. It had a square west tower, iron railings around the perimeter of the site, substantial interior galleries “and elaborate pewing”. The contractors were Woolston and Collins. The building's original estimated cost, in 1834, was £2,800, while the final, total cost by the time of opening, in 1836, was £4,000.Royal Commission on Historical Monuments. ''The Town of Stamford''. London, 1977. Of the medieval building, “no more than two re-used possibly thirteenth century stiff-leaf capitals urvivein an undercroft beneath the west tower”.Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris. The Buildings of England, Lincolnshire. Penguin, 1964.

Decommission and conversion

The church was declared redundant in 1974 and after some years of vacillation when several options - including demolition – were considered; it was transformed into shops in 1982. The conversion, by Arthur Mull Associates of Huntingdon was described by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

as “an unsympathetic use and an appalling conversion”. The interior was gutted and divided, and its Georgian plasterwork and stained-glass windows destroyed. While a fifteenth-century octagonal font was dispatched to

St Nicholas Church, Leicester St Nicholas Church is an ancient Anglo-Saxon Church of England parish church in Leicester, England. One of the five surviving medieval churches of Leicester Old Town, it was constructed over 1150 years ago and is Leicester's oldest and longest ...

, a peal of eighteenth-century bells, a pair of seventeenth-century silver flagons and other church plate was apparently dispersed. The organ built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd in 1863 was dispersed to St Mark's,

Killylea Killylea (; ) is a small village and townland in Northern Ireland. It is within the Armagh City and District Council area. The village is set on a hill, with St Mark's Church of Ireland, built in 1832, at its summit. The village lies to th ...

, Co. Armagh in 1967. Six plate-glass shop windows were introduced into the north wall, the shopping units extending to the ‘rear’ of the building on the ground floor while the remainder is used for storage. A car-park and delivery area were introduced at the rear, flattening much of the medieval churchyard, although a number of fine eighteenth and nineteenth century tombstones and memorials, and in particular a late-seventeenth century chest tomb, survive. Even so, what little remains has also been threatened with development every few years, and a number of attempts made to build shop units upon it. The churchyard remains in the care of

South Kesteven District Council South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

. A

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

memorial was added in the twenty-first century. In 2016 gates bearing the Stamford arms were commissioned.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael the Greater, Stamford Church of England church buildings in Lincolnshire Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Lincolnshire Grade II listed churches in Lincolnshire Churches completed in 1836 19th-century Church of England church buildings Churches in Stamford, Lincolnshire