Listed Building record MDR4223 - St Michael's Church, Church Bank, Hathersage

St Michael's Church, Hathersage, is mostly of the first half of the 14th century. There are insertions in the Perpendicular style. The church was thoroughly restored in 1851 and 1852. (1) The bells of St Michael's are of historical significance. Two bells dating to 1657 and 1659 are good examples of the work of founder Jeffrey Scott of Wigan. A bell dated to circa 1520 is by the Seliok family of Nottingham and a later bell by 1617 is a rare example of the work of Paul Heathcote of Chesterfield. Another bell dated to the 15th century is by an unknown founder. (2) Excavations into the church floor took place in 2016 as part of the installation of a new heating system. The extant concrete and tiled floor '…overlay a series of limestone walls represented by 2-3 courses of limestone blocks of varying sizes. This in turn was bedded on and slightly cut into compacted subsoil. Within this subsoil three separate burials were identified.' The burials were left in situ. (3) From the National Heritage List for England: 'SK 23 81 PARISH OF HATHERSAGE BANK TOP 6/12 12.7.67 Church of St Michael and All Angels GV I Church. Principally C14 and C15, restored by Butterfield 1851-2, and with extensions and minor alterations in 1949. Massive ashlar gritstone with moulded plinth, C19 coped gables with moulded kneelers, cross finials and slated roofs laid to diminish- ing courses. West tower, nave, north and south aisles, south aisle porch, chancel with former chantry chapel, now a lady chapel to the north side, and a sacristy and vestry to the south side. Two stage tower with stepped angle buttresses, rising off a three stage plinth. Above the stringcourse to the first stage, 'Y' tracery belfry lights with cusped heads below hoodmoulds with stops. Moulded stringcourse with gargoyles separates earlier work and C15 crenellations to parapet. C15 crocketed octagonal spire. Tower has a Perp west window of 3-lights with panel tracery. Four-bay nave with C15 clerestory, having flat-headed, 2-light windows with mouchettes above cusped ogee-headed lights. Stepped hoodmould with stops below a moulded stringcourse, and crenellated parapet with grotesque spouts and C19 crocketed pinnacles to east gable. South aisle porch gabled, and with raking crenellations above a moulded stringcourse, the merlons decorated with heraldic and floral motifs. Double chamfered surround and pointed arch to door- ways, enclosing restored south aisle doorway. South aisle mid C15 of two bays with stepped buttresses, one between the windows, the other angled at the east end, with tapering crocketed pinnacles. 2-light windows, remodelled in 1851 with flowing tracery beneath flat heads and hoodmoulds with stops. Moulded stringcourse with crenellated parapet above. Two-bay chancel with plain corbel table, and flat-headed, 2-light window with ogee head within a moulded surround, now partially obscured by C20 vestry to south wall, which encloses a Dec doorway to the chancel south wall. Restored 3-light east window with flowing tracery beneath a hoodmould with carved stops. East gable has stepped angle buttresses. Former chantry chapel circa 1459, of two bays with gabled east end, and crenellated parapet above moulded stringcourse to north wall. East window of 3-lights and two, 2-light windows to north wall, all Perp, with cusped lights beneath shallow pointed arched heads with hoodmoulds and stops. Angle buttresses to corners and stepped buttress between north wall windows, with gargoyle above. Doorway with four-centred arched head to west end. North aisle with crenellated parapet above moulded stringcourse and projecting ashlar stack between windows, shouldered at the eaves, and with a circular stone chimney. Blocked doorway at west end with deeply chamfered, pointed arch below hoodmould with stops. Interior; tall tower arch to nave, with embattled foliated bands as capitals. Roofline of an earlier nave visible above tower arch. Octagonal font of chalice form with heraldic shields of the Eyre, Barnake and Padley familities on three facets, and carved decoration to the others. Four bay nave with octagonal arcade piers and simply moulded arches. North arcade capitals have a form of stiff-leaf decoration, and the responds to the tower wall and chancel walls have a more elaborate form, the latter a restoration. One of the north arcade bases appears to have formerly supported a column of clustered shafts. South arcade capitals are plainly moulded. The chancel arch appears contemporary with the nave arcades. The north chancel chapel, added in 1463 as a chantry chapel to the Eyre family, with a shallow pointed arch giving access from the north aisle. The chapel east wall has tapered corbel supports for statuary, now missing, and an aumbry to the south of the window. The chancel has a C14 2-light window to the north wall, above an elaborate ogee arched recess having a chest tomb to Robert Eyre of 1459 and his wife, Joan, with brasses reset in a slab of crinoidal limestone, together with brasses to their children. The tomb was restored by the Countess of Newburgh in 1852. The east window has glass by Kempe, originally in Derwent Church, but reset in Hathersage in 1948, following the creation of Derwent reservoir and the submersion of the church. Chancel south wall has an ogee headed piscina and triple sedilia, both late C14, beneath a continuous stringcourse which steps up above the pointed arched doorway now enclosed by the vestry. Other monuments to the Eyre family have been reset in the chancel south wall; Radulph Eyre, d1493 and his wife Elizabeth, and Sir Arthur Eyre, c1560. The brasses to Robert Eyre, c1500, his wife and some of their children have been reset in the recess of the main Eyre chest tomb, and the brasses to what are thought to be two of their daughters, have been reset in the chancel south wall. Listing NGR: SK2339881854.' (3)