Patrick Comerford
Saint Michael’s Church on the western edges of St Albans in Hertfordshire is near the centre of the site of Roman Verulamium, the Roman Theatre and the Verulamium Museum.
Saint Michael’s Church is the best-preserved Saxon building in Hertfordshire, and many regard it as the most significant surviving Anglo-Saxon building in England.
Saint Michael’s Church was built in the 10th century on the site of the basilica, the headquarters of Roman Verulamium. It may have been here that Saint Alban was tried for being a Christian before he was executed outside the town walls, perhaps where St Albans Abbey now stands.
According to the 13th century chronicler Matthew Paris, Wulsin (or Ulsinus), Abbot of St Alban’s Abbey, founded a church on each of the three main roads into the town in the year 948 – Saint Michael’s, Saint Peter’s and Saint Stephen’s – to serve pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Saint Alban.
However, Wulsin may have been abbot ca 860-880, and the earliest parts of Saint Michael’s are at least a century later. The church certainly dates from the late Anglo-Saxon era and there may have been an earlier wooden church on the site.
A stone church was built on a simple plan in the late 10th or early 11th century, with a chancel and a nave. The building includes much Roman material salvaged or purloined from the surrounding Roman ruins of Verulamium, including Roman brick used in the splays of the nave windows.
A north aisle and then a south aisle were added in the early 12th century. They were linked with the nave by arcades of plain round-headed arches cut in the north and south walls of the nave, leaving sections of the Saxon wall as piers. The arcades do not match: the earlier north arcade has three bays spaced irregularly; the later south arcade was built with four bays. The round-headed Norman window at the east end of the north aisle may also date from the 12th century.
When the aisles were added, the church became much darker inside. A clerestory with six Early English lancet windows on each side was added to the nave in the 13th century to increase the amount of natural light. Another Early English lancet window from this period survives in the north wall of the chancel.
Efforts were made to stabilise the south aisle when it became unstable, but it was demolished at a later date.
The south chapel was added in the 13th century, and the easternmost arch of the south aisle became the entrance to the chapel. Three of the chapel’s windows are round-headed 13th century late Norman arches: two in the east wall and one in the south wall.
The south chapel is taller than the nave, so the more easterly windows on the south side of the clerestory now look into the chapel instead of outside. The church may also have been given a west tower in the 13th century.
The chancel and the north aisle were rebuilt ca 1340 and the chancel arch was enlarged. The Decorated east window, an ogee-headed south window and matching tomb recess in the chancel, and one of the windows in the north aisle, all date from this time.
Three of the single lancets on the north side of the clerestory were replaced in the 15th century with two-light square-headed windows, two large windows were inserted in the south wall of the south chapel and one in the south wall of the chancel.
The piscinas in the chancel and south chapel, and the octagonal font also date from the 15th century. The font is now known to have been carved from a single piece of stone. The 13th-century clerestory was given a new roof on stone corbels late in the 15th century.
Also in the 15th century, a wooden tympanum was inserted in the 14th-century chancel arch and a ‘Doom’ was painted on it, spreading over the upper part of the east wall of the nave. A rood screen was added to the chancel arch at that time. It has since been removed, but stone stairs to it survive on the south side of the arch next to the south chapel.
The tower may have been remodelled in the late 15th or early 16th century. In its final form it had paired bell-openings, an embattled parapet and a polygonal stair-turret that was taller than the tower. A late Perpendicular west window of three lights was inserted in the west wall of the nave, probably early in the 16th century.
St Alban’s Abbey was suppressed in 1539 at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The patronage of Saint Michael’s then passed from the abbey to the nearby Gorhambury Estate. One of the owners of Gorhambury was the Tudor politician, author, philosopher and early scientist Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
The most significant 17th century monument in Saint Michael’s is the monument to Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban, who died in 1626. It is in a round-arched recess inserted in the north wall of the chancel.
Bacon had a successful political career, becoming Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England before being forced out of office on charges of corruption. He then retired to Gorhambury, outside St Albans, where he devoted his time to the study of philosophy and developed what became known as the scientific method, the basis for modern science.
The monument is a life-sized sculpture showing Bacon sitting in an armchair in a relaxed pose. The sculptor may have been Nicholas Stone. A copy of the statue sculpted by Henry Weekes (1845) is in the chapel in Trinity College, Cambridge.
Saint Michael’s present wooden pulpit, tester and altar table date from the late 16th or early 17th century. The east wall of the south chapel may have been rebuilt in the early 17th century. Between its two lancet windows is a circular one that may date from this time. The present roof of the south chapel may also date from the 17th century.
The royal coat of arms on the west wall of the Lady Chapel dates from the reign of Charles II.
A west gallery was inserted in the nave late in the 17th century, and box pews were also added.
The church was restored in 1866 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. He had the box pews and west gallery removed and added the Gothic Revival south porch, which uses one of the 12th-century arches of the former south aisle.
The 19th century oak pews date largely from Scott’s reordering in the 1860s, and some incorporate late mediaeval or early modern linenfold panelling.
Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, who left his mark on St Albans Cathedral at the same time, remodelled the west end of Saint Michael’s in 1896-1898 to his own designs and at his own expense. When he had the west tower demolished, the possible 13th century origins of the tower were discovered under its late Perpendicular external fabric.
Grimthorpe replaced the tower with a northwest tower in a ‘fanciful’ Gothic Revival interpretation of Early English Gothic. He extended the nave to the west, demolishing its old west wall and late Perpendicular west window, and also added a vestry on the site of the south aisle.
During these Victorian-era restorations, the 15th-century tympanum was taken down and the rest of the ‘Doom’ painting was obliterated.
The architect John C Rogers carried out further restoration work in 1934-1935 and added a second vestry on the north side of the chancel in 1938.
As well as Francis Bacon’s monument, Saint Michael's has some notable monumental brasses, including a 14th-century brass to John Pecock and his wife Maud in the south chapel.
The oldest glass in the church dates from the 17th century, and is a 13th century lancet window on the north side of the chancel, beside the Bacon monument. It may have come from the chapel in Gorhambury House. It shows the impaled heraldic arms of local families: Grimston impaling Croke, Grimston and Bacon impaling Cooke.
The other stained glass is mainly Victorian and the windows include:
Clayton and Bell: the Transfiguration (east window).
Burlison and Gryllis: the Ascension (south chancel); the visit of the Magi (north aisle); the Nativity (north aisle).
Nathaniel Westlake: a couple receiving Holy Communion at their wedding (bottom right), a woman and child by a man’s deathbed (bottom left), and above an illustration of words in the canticle Te Deum, ‘Make them to be humbled with thy saints in glory everlasting’ and ‘The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee’ (south chancel).
Ward and Hughes: two lancets showing the Beatitudes and a roundel with the Star of David (Lady Chapel, east end); Christ blessing the children (Lady Chapel, south wall); early events in the life of Christ, including the Wedding at Cana, the Presentation in the Temple, and the visit of the shepherds (Lady Chapel, south wall); Christ carrying the Cross and the angels announcing the Resurrection (Lady Chapel, south wall).
Hardman: Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (north aisle); Saint Peter and Saint Paul (north facing clerestory); Saint Alban and Saint Stephen (north facing clerestory).
The west window, installed in 1866 and moved to its present place in 1899, depicts the three archangels, Gabriel, Michael and Rapael.
For me, though, the most fascinating survivals in the church are three remnants of mediaeval painting. One of the timber roof beams is painted, as well as a lancet window embrasure in the nave. But the most interesting painting is a section of a ‘Doom’, a depiction of the Day of Judgement painted on a semi-circular section of wood.
The Doom, dated to the 15th century, acted as a tympanum at the top of the chancel arch. The Doom was boarded over at the Reformation and was covered by layers of lime wash. It was only rediscovered in 1808 during building work. The entire scene was sketched, and the tympanum rescued, before the arch was rebuilt in its present form.
A tapestry on the south wall depicts the 1808 drawing of the entire Doom painting. As for the tympanum, it shows six figures rising up from their coffins on the Day of Judgment. Two of the figures wear a crown and another appears to be wearing a bishop’s mitre.
Saint Michael’s has been a Grade I listed building since 1950 because of its extensive late Anglo-Saxon fabric, the phases of expansion in the High Middle Ages, the 15th century nave roof, the tympanum with surviving part of the 15th century Doom painting, the late Elizabethan or early Jacobean pulpit, and Bacon’s Jacobean monument.
• The Revd Jonny Lloyd, former Minor Canon and Precentor of St Albans, is the Vicar of Saint Michael’s. Sunday services are at 8 am, Said Eucharist; 9:30 am, the Parish Eucharist; with a mid-week Eucharist on Wednesdays at 10:30. The church is open daily.
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