Micheldever,
Hampshire - St Mary the Virgin Church
16th and 19th centuries
Click on photos to enlarge.
Notes in italics from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Nikolaus Pevsner
and David Lloyd (1967)
Yale University Press, New Haven and London. |
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The thrill of the church -
more for unexpectedness perhaps than for strictly architectural quality -
is George Dance's centre octagon inserted into what had been a normal
medieval church. |
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Of that church the W tower
remained standing. It is of flint and stone and has a higher stair-turret
and four-light bell-openings with a transom. The arches of the lights are
uncusped; so it will probably be temp. Henry
VIII. ... Dance was ruthless. His octagon, which was built in 1808, is of
brick, showing bluntly outside and without any finesses of mouldings for
the windows, let alone stone dressings. The walls are bare below - windows
are only on the clerestory level, and they are just arch-heads. |
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The interior is less rigid.
Four shallow niches in the diagonals, two deeper ones instead of
transepts. All surrounds are of fine continuous mouldings. Plaster
star-vault. |
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To mediate between the tower
and the octagon Dance introduced a bay of transition of which the sides
are the beginning of the medieval arcade, but the E arch may be the
re-used chancel arch and E responds. |
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The present chancel is of
1880-1*, and at that time windows with flowing tracery were introduced,
not only in the chancel E wall.
* Probably by Colson who (according to the Rev. Basil Clarke) did the
reredos in 1883. |
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On the south wall
of the chancel: A group of three Baring monuments by Flaxman.
The Barings resided at The Grange and
Stratton Court. They were made between 1801 and 1813. The centre is Thy Will be
Done, a resignedly seated praying woman in a mildly Gothic surround. The
two side pieces are smaller and each have a square, surprisingly Baroque
panel: Thy Kingdom Come, a mother and child carried heavenwards by a
tangle of angels, and Deliver us from Evil, a figure battling devils and
helped by angels. |
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Memorial
plaques in the nave and in the tower |
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Map |
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Micheldever in Victoria County History |
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