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St Michael, Stoke Prior, Worcestershire

Location
(52°18′26″N, 2°4′34″W)
Stoke Prior
SO 949 677
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Worcestershire
now Worcestershire
medieval Worcester
now Worcester
  • G. L. Pearson

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Description

Of grey-green sandstone. Nave and chancel 12thc.. Late 12thc. chapel to E of N aisle which is modern, but which retains its early 12thc. arcade. Chancel lengthened and vestry added 12thc. when a S aisle was also added. The tower, begunc.1200 has a small lady chapel in EE style. Modern vestry added to E end of the N aisle. Modern porch to S doorway. The earliest church of which there are any remains dates from the first half of the 12thc., at which time it consisted of a chancel and nave with a N aisle. About 1180 a small chapel was added at the E end of the N aisle with an archway opening into the chancel. At the same time the building of the tower was begun, the N and W arches being the first work. The building of the tower seems to have lingered for some time, but it may have been completed before 1250. The small chapel to the E of it seems to have been part of the original plan. (VCH)

History

In 1086 the monks of Worcester held Stoke Prior. The Prior of Worcester had two mills on his manor of Stoke Prior rendering two ounces of silver yearly. He had a priest there.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches
Tower/Transept arches

Arcades

Nave
Comments/Opinions

The masons who constructed the great tower of Dodderhill, Worcestershire, which is about 11km SW of Stoke Prior, seem to have built the chancel arch and the base of the tower here shortly afterwards. There seems to have been one long and rather slow campaign from the middle of the 12thc., with a change of master-mason after the building of the N arcade.

Bibliography
The Victoria History of the Counties of England. Worcestershire, vol.III. London 1913, 529-31.
C. J. Bond, 'Church and Parish in Norman Worcestershire' in J. Blair (ed.) Minsters and Parish Churches. The Local Church in Transition 950-1200, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 17. Oxford 1988, 119-58, 134, 137, 151.
N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Worcestershire. Harmondsworth 1968, 47, 265-66.