Saint Michael and All Angels
Saint Michael and All Saints is a rural church on the South Downs Pathway. Every day there are walkers and visitors to the church, many of whom bring their four legged friends who are welcomed with a drink and dog biscuit, who can resist. Set in the village of Chalton and opposite the Red Lion pub, probably the oldest pub in Hampshire Saint Michael’s is steeped in history. Those who visit the church can see a leper’s window and some beautiful examples of stained glass window that connect St Michael’s and St Hubert’s in Finchdean. The graveyard also is worth a mention in that early burials were very unusual. To find out more come and visit our little church in the countryside.
History
Saint Michael and All Angels is a parish church with a late C12 or early C13 early English chancel, nave and western tower, C14 south transept, and C19 north porch. The walls are made of flint (some plaster work in the chancel) with stone quoins. There are stepped buttresses to the chancel, brick quoins to the upper part of the tower.
It has a plain tile roof. The plain tower has a low crenelated parapet, a small pyramid roof, and small openings; a wide plain doorway, now filled, was the entrance to the church. The porch has a flint and stone wall, with a pierced wooden frame above, supporting a gabled roof with decorative bargeboards.
The windows are mostly tall lancets, the south side of the nave having a coupled light with a (plate tracery) trefoil head, the north side has a coupled light of the Decorated style with reticulated tracery, repeated in the south window of the transept. In the chancel there is a low-side window beneath a filled lancet and a restored 4-light east window of Geometrical style.
Inside there are deep splays to the windows, and a cill band in the chancel, double trefoil heads to a piscina, and an aumbry cupboard. The arch to the transept has half-columns (responds) of octagonal form, and the octagonal font (C15) is placed there. Wall monuments include a kneeling figure within a Corinthian framework (Richard Ball, died 1632), two other classical monuments, of 1720 and 1829, and small monuments of 1819 and 1933.
How to find Saint Michael
South Lane, Chalton, Waterlooville PO8 0BG
Please note that, owing to its location, there is no postal service to the church. Postal correspondence should be addressed to the BCI Benefice Office, Blendworth Lane, Waterlooville, PO8 0AA
