St. Michael's Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. It is located in the lower part of the town, near its centre, towards the northern end of Church Street and is of historical value. It is designated a Grade I listed building.

History

St. Michael's is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. It is largely of 16th-century construction in stone and

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

. As with many British churches, there is evidence of much alteration made to the building over the centuries The south porch of the church was built in 1539, and a War Memorial Chapel installed in 1920. The building takes the form of a double-aisled church with a west tower and two separate chapels either side of the chancel at the eastern end. There is an attached

churchyard In Christian countries, a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church (building), church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster S ...

, which was closed to burials around 1860. In the southeast corner,

St Stephen Stephen (; ) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first martyr of Christianity."St ...

's Chapel and the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

are the earliest parts extant, with exterior walls of rough flint and rubble, and a separate, steeply pitched, red tiled roof with an ostensibly

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

chimney. During extensive repairs and changes to the interior of the church undertaken in 1840–1841, old foundations were met with, and it was noted that many stones had the remains of "ancient mouldings", suggesting that this part of the church was constructed on the site of, and using material from, an earlier construction. Interior and exterior evidence indicates that the roof of the chapel was once a lean-to. Interior fitments include an unornamented

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. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...

and a wooden

triptych A triptych ( ) is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all m ...

(c. 1549) believed to be the work of

Jan Sanders van Hemessen Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500 – c. 1566) was a leading Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanism (painting), Romanists, who were in ...

that was presented to the church by the then

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...

James Millard in the 1870s. In his 1895 novel ''

Jude the Obscure ''Jude the Obscure'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895 (though the title page says 1896). The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man; he i ...

'',

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

described the church as gaunt and unattractive. In 1908 the newly ordained minister was Ernest Charles Saunders who had recently married Lilian Elwyn Elliott. His new wife had left him by 1909 and went on to be a noted writer and anthropologist. She married again but there is no evidence that she ever divorced Ernest.

Notes

References

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's Church, Basingstoke Basingstoke Basingstoke, St. Michaels's Basingstoke, St. Michaels's

History

See also

Notes

References

External links