A Brief History of St. Michael’s Church…at St. Michaels (Part One)

Pevsner, the British travel writer -- by which I mean he travelled around Britain and wrote about it, not that he was British and travelled abroad writing about foreign places…although he was British…and he might even have travelled abroad and written about foreign places for all I know…look, you’ve either heard of him or you haven’t, so bear with me on this -- once described St. Michael’s Church (in St. Michael’s, of course) as: “A typical late mediaeval North Country church.”
Which shows what he knew, because it’s a damned sight earlier than late mediaeval.


In fact, St. Michael’s was the only church in the Wyre to be mentioned by name in William the Conqueror’s big fat ledger of ill-gotten gains the Domesday Book (although there are actually several other churches around the district referred to in brief…just not by name) making it early mediaeval rather than late.
The vicars’ board inside the church confirms this by listing its ministers all the way back to 1196, so it’s at least 800 years old, you see, and probably more.
Because of its long history you’d naturally expect to find plenty of relics in situ, so let’s start with the door on the north side of the chancel, which dates back to the Norman period, or about 1,000 years ago for anybody who doesn’t know about these things…quite a long time when you stop to consider it.


Imagine the history that arch has seen. The Wars of the Roses, Vikings, Cromwell fighting the Royalists, the Jacobites rampaging through the churchyard with their swords rattling and their kilts flying…or possibly none of those things, because St Michael’s is a bit of a quiet nook really when I stop to think about it. Nonetheless, it’s stood through all those various historic events, as well as the Spanish Armada, Henry VIII and his six wives, Agincourt et al…even if it didn’t witness them personally.
The pointed arch, regardless of Pevsner’s somewhat dismissive attitude, of course, is typical of early mediaeval/Norman architecture.
Tradition dictates that the site of the church is even older. Tradition generally does with these matters, although on this occasion it’s probably right.
One of the earliest remaining sections is the bricked-up lancet window near the front door. Like the leper’s squint at St. Helens this window was originally used to pass alms to lepers outside.


Let’s talk about lepers for a moment, because they’re always good for a laugh (so long as you don’t know any lepers personally, of course, in which case it’s not an amusing matter at all really). If the disease wasn’t horrific enough by itself, lepers throughout the Middle Ages were considered unclean by those more fortunate.
They were forced to wear distinguishing clothes, rattle clappers and carry bowls to warn people of their approach (a bit like football fans nowadays, with their distinctive football strips, clappers and KFC boxes…only not as menacing).
Originally healthy people pitied them, but, as the problem became more widespread, the church, with its usual tact, declared that leprosy was God’s punishment against sinners. Lepers soon fell into the same category as Jews, prostitutes, homosexuals and witches (all terrible affronts to decent human beings, I’m sure you’ll agree).
Naturally such an attitude only applied to peasant lepers, aristocratic lepers being regarded as martyrs.
Interestingly, perhaps, according to Father Martinus Cawley (no relation to Father Jack Hackett), civic authorities during the mediaeval era regarded lepers as ‘legally dead’ giving them (the civic authorities that is) free reign to confiscate lepers’ goods.
However, we’re digressing.
Returning to St. Michael’s church, another early relic is the piscina, which sits on the right of the altar, (its something you put holy water into, I believe, and not the vicar’s personal loo as the name might suggest) along with the pedestal found on the east wall which, apparently, once contained an effigy of Saint Michael himself (neither of which we have a photograph of).
Even some of the stained glass windows have a long-standing legacy. The roundel in the Butler Chapel, for example, is Flemish and dates from the sixteenth century. We haven’t got a photograph of that either, apparently, but I have drawn it up.


Typical of the Wyre’s farming heritage this romantic scene depicts a couple shearing sheep. (It could have been worse.) Documents inform us that the window was originally one of a set of three…although what became of the other two we couldn’t say.
At the bottom of the picture is the word Junius (meaning June), the month when shearing generally took place. It’s accompanied by a crayfish, which probably represents the astrological sign of Cancer (June 21st to July 22nd).
Another fragment of old glass found in the Butler Chapel depicts a shield and dates from the fourteenth century.
This article’s going on a bit longer than I thought it would. Time for a seven-day break to gather our meagre wits before part two.

A Bevy (albeit a small one) of Over Wyre Postcards

It’s time, we reckon, for some old photographs of t’other bank of t’ Wyre (where the night ghasts live). First up, St. Mary’s in Hambleton before it was rebuilt in 1973.


As early as 1567 an Episcopal Chapel existed on the site, but there might even have been a chapel of ease to Kirkham there at a much earlier date. Inside St. Mary’s, apparently (and I say “apparently” because I’ve never actually been inside to find out) hang reproductions of two mediaeval documents recording the ‘granting of the manor of Hambleton by Henry the Third to Geoffrey the Crossbowman in 1228’ and the manor being ‘passed to Geoffrey’s son, Robert of Shireburn’ in 1244.
The churchyard (similar to a number of other churches Over Wyre) is surrounded by a ditch, suggesting that it was erected on a pagan site.
At the top of the hill to the rear of St. Mary’s runs an ancient, sunken track. Although used as a drove road during the mediaeval period, it predates the Romans having been originally constructed as a sunken way by the ancient Celts. Just for the record, this sunken track seems to be part of the Romano-Brtitish Nateby to Bourne via Stanah route.
Next up, we have the somewhat unusual sundial above the porch of St. John the Baptist, Pilling. (We might have written about this before. I can’t remember now, but it’s worth re-mentioning all the same.)


The sundial was placed there in memory of Reverend George Holden, a former vicar. Holden’s claim to fame was that he invented the ‘Tide Tables’ still in use today.
Another famous vicar of St. John’s (possibly infamous) was Reverend Potter, a pugilistic, drunken enthusiast of wreck salvage who, following the death of his first wife, remarried a young girl from the village the father of whose illegitimate child had never been revealed. (We’re not saying anything).
St. John’s itself was built in 1721 to replace the older chapel at Newers Wood (part of which constitutes the rear wall) but is nowadays redundant.
From churches to pubs (a natural progression if ever there was one) and the Seven Stars, one of the two watering holes in Stalmine that were around in mediaeval times (although, obviously, the photograph isn’t as old as all that).


The fact that two pubs stood in such close proximity to each other in such a small village suggests that an unofficial market was held between them. (Either that or the locals had a bit of a drink problem.) The other hostelry (the Pack Horse Inn) stood on the ground currently occupied by the post office, the counter of the latter being originally the Pack Horse’s bar.
St. Oswald’s (behind the trees in the photograph) was rebuilt in 1860, it’s ancient ceiling, decorated with signs of the zodiac, being destroyed in the process. One item that did survive was the cross near the porch, its base being typical of a Sixth-to-Eleventh Century keeill cross.
And finally for this week, because we don’t want to tire everyone out, a rather excellent old image of the Shard Hotel (originally the Shard House).


As you’ve probably gathered, the building itself predates the bridge, having been built in 1766 on the site of the old ferryman’s cottage.
At one time a small gravestone stood in the car park (to be honest it might still be there, we’re not sure…it was the last time we looked), giving rise to much speculation amongst the visitors. The grave actually belonged to a faithful dog that drowned whilst saving the life of its owner who’d accidentally fallen into the river.

In for a Barracking

We didn’t know about this until Steve Bird pointed it out to us. We’ve written before about Wilfred Owen and the hutments at Rossall Point – about how in 1859 Fleetwood became an army town and how the squaddies were accused of trampling down fences and destroying farm property. What we didn’t realise was that part of the original barracks is still standing.
Take a look at this:


This is one of two remaining walls belonging to the aforementioned barracks down a back alley running parallel to Beach Road. It might not be very attractive, perhaps, but it is historically interesting, especially when you stop to consider that at the start of the First World War it was actually occupied by this lot:


We were quite impressed by the size of the wall. The barracks never looked that large on the map. Whether Wilfred Owen ever wandered around inside the enclosure or not, we couldn’t say for certain (we suspect he did) because he lived officially down Bold Street (and for a short time on Lord Street as well).
Whatever the case, here’s the first edition Ordnance Survey map showing exactly how large (and complicated) the barracks were.


Here’s another shot of the wall.


High, isn’t it? And heavily defended! Those are gun slots up near the top. They get narrower towards the outside, allowing maximum room for manoeuvre by the riflemen behind them (who, presumably, had some sort of gantry to stand on…unless they were just extremely tall) and minimum chance for any stray enemy bullets to get through.
Oddly enough, the walls appear to have been built, or rather rebuilt, several times. The lower bricks are mainly pre-frogged affairs placing them, if memory serves, in the early Victorian period. Higher up there are your traditional frogged and hard-baked Victorian bricks, whilst at the top a layer consistent with World War II defences seems to have been added. We’re not sure about the entire life history of the barracks, when it demolished and why etc. so we’re just going off what we could actually see.
Round the corner on Beach Road there’s another relic from Fleetwood’s military past, denoting the corner of the barracks themselves.


That’s a War Department stone, that is. There’s another one in the front wall of the North Euston Hotel if anyone fancies a look. You might be able to make out W.D. No. 2 carved into this one, and what appears to be a benchmark. It isn’t a benchmark. It’s the War Department logo. It looks like a benchmark because, well, benchmarks were established by the Ordnance Survey mob, who basically worked for the War Department surveying Britain’s ordnance…er…obviously.
Anyhow, there you go…worth a quick gander if you’re into that sort of stuff.
One last photograph, showing another section of the remaining walls, this time over a hollow section of ground where the foundations to keep it level, as can be seen, were rather large. It’s surprising what’s still left around Fleetwood that we thought had long since gone.