Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST MICHAEL (1216019)

Parish church of 1855-56 by H.1. Stevens. MATERIALS: Coursed rock-faced sandstone with freestone dressings, graded slate roof. PLAN: Aisled nave, lower chancel, west tower, south porch and north-east vestry. EXTERIOR: The exterior is mainly late Perpendicular style, with a Decorated chancel. The 3-stage tower has clasping buttresses, embattled parapet and corner pinnacles. It has a 3-light west window, and south door with continuous chamfer. In the middle stage is a round west clock face, under a hood mould. The upper stage has 2-light openings with louvres. Three-bay aisles have 3¬light and 2-light windows. The south porch has a steep roof and continuous chamfer to its entrance arch. In the chancel is a 3-light east window, 2-light south window and a doorway with continuous chamfer. The present north vestry was added in 1999, but above it can be seen the scar of an earlier lean-to vestry roof. INTERIOR: Nave arcades are in Decorated style with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. Eastern responds have foliage capitals. The chancel arch is on polygonal responds. The tower arch is obscured by the organ, but has a double-chamfer dying into the imposts. Nave and chancel have hammerbeam roofs, the aisles have tie-beam roofs. Walls are exposed freestone. Floors have tiles, except for raised floorboards beneath the pews. PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Wrought ironwork against the east wall of the north aisle is said to have been a reredos erected c1739, although it looks like the overthrow of a gate screen. it is possibly by Robert Bakewell (1685-1752), one of the foremost architectural iron smiths of the early C18, and features generous use of repousse ironwork, including a trumpet-bearing angel, although done in a rustic manner. Above it is a Queen Anne Royal Arms painted on board. In the porch are 2 coffin slabs, one said to be of Saxon date, the other of the C13. There are 3 C18 wall tablets in the chancel. A wall monument to Raphe Newman (d 1617) incorporates a guilloche-moulded border. Other furnishings are mid C19 or later. The font is octagonal with quatrefoils around the bowl. Simple benches have ends with moulded tops. The C20 pulpit has linenfold panelling. Choir stalls have ends incorporating blind-tracery panels, and foliage relief panels to the frontals. The wooden reredos has blind tracery. There are 3 mid C20 windows of conventional design, 2 signed by Celtic Studios of Swansea. HISTORY: The church was built in 1855-56 by H.1. Stevens (1806-73), architect of Derby. Stevens had an established reputation for church building in the East Midlands. The contractor was George Thompson. The new church replaced an earlier church, from which a Saxon coffin lid, wall tablets and a piece from a wrought-iron reredos were installed in the new church. SOURCES: Pevsner, N and Williamson, E., The Buildings of England: Derbyshire (1978), 190. Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society Archives. REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Church of St Michael, Alvaston. is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * The church is a confident if unspectacular Gothic-Revival design that well represents the work of its architect. * It has interior fixtures of special interest, notably an early medieval coffin lid and a substantial fragment of early C18 wrought ironwork.