Eaton Bishop is four miles W of the centre of Hereford, set on rising ground on the S side of the Wye valley. The church stands on a hill at the N end of the village. Traces of settlement from the Bronze age to the Roman period have been found nearby, including Eaton Camp, an Iron age hill fort on a promontory alongside the Wye, 0.8 mile E of the present village, and a Roman road that ran N to S, passing within half a mile of the village on its W side.
St Michael’s has an aisled and clerestoried nave with a S porch, a chancel and a W tower with a broach spire. The stocky, unbuttressed tower is 12thc, including its tower arch and bell-openings, the E of which is now visible inside the church above the lower original nave roofline. The short broach spire is shingled and has large lucarnes at the foot of each face. The nave clerestory, the four-bay arcades and the aisle windows date from the early 13thc. The E bay of each aisle has been converted to a transeptal chapel, not projecting but with gabled roofs and grander windows of the early 14thc; the S with ogee-cusped tracery, the N simpler. The chancel and its arch date from the later 13thc, and the E window with five stepped lancets with cusped heads is contemporary, although the S windows are like that of the S transept chapel. There was a restoration in 1859-60 by John Clayton of Hereford (reseating and repairs), one in 1885 by Thomas Nicholson of Hereford (rebuilding part of E nave wall, reseating and repairs), and one in 1968 by Herbert Powell involving repairs only.
The only Romanesque work is in the tower: the tower arch and bell-openings.
