St Michael's Church, Bath

St Michael's Church is a parish church in Bath, Somerset that is located between Broad and Walcot Streets, which both merge onto Northgate Street. Located next to the Post Office Building, the south tower (referred to as the W tower) fronts Northgate street and dominates Bath's skyline. The current structure was designed by George Phillips Manners and the structure is currently being renovated.

Medieval Church

The parish has been located here, outside the walls, since medieval times. It was outside the Northgate and would have been passed by wool merchants traveling on London Road. The area that would in Georgian times be called Bath New Town (not to be confused with neighboring Bathwick New Town) was known as St. Michael's.

Georgian Church

Designed and constructed by craftsmen J. Harvey between 1734 and 1742, the structure featured an impressive dome and was half the size of the current Victorian structure.

=Victorian Church=

“St. Michael, Broad Street. At the sharp corner with Walcot Street and in the point de vue up Northgate Street. The church is of medieval original and lay originally ante muros. The present church is of 1835-7, by G. P. Manners. Its immediate predecessor dated from 1742 and had a dome (Collinson). Manner’s church displays a crazy W tower, tall and narrow with a huge group of three stepped lancets, buttresses with the stepped-set offs of Wells, and at the top a tall octagonal open lantern with spire. The tower is flanked by polygonal porches. The sides have the same buttresses and the same group of lancets. – A “hall-church” inside, that is with aisles the same height as the nave. Thin tall circular piers with four attached shafts. Quadripartite plaster rib-vaulting. Polygonal apse with tall blank arcading. – PAINTING. Two panles attributed to William Hoare and Rombinson. – PLATE. Paten by Clare 1720; Chalice, Flagon and three Dishes by George Wickes 1743; Cup 1797; two Almsdishes 1828. – MONUMENT. Ritual W side of S porch, i.e. really N side of SE porch. Probably by the same hand as the Coward monument in the Abbey, with a weeping putto by an urb. It is to Samuel Emes; date illegible.” [1]

External links

* [http://bathdailyphoto.wordpress.com/2007/01/07/070107bath-st-michaels-pevsner-architectural-church-chat/// Photos of St. Michael's]

References

*Nikolaus Pevsner, "The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol", (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1958), 107-108.