| Summary: | According to Bishop Lacey's diocesan register, St. Michael's chapel was licensed in 1435. In 1450 indulgences were granted to any person who said a prayer in the chapel (Bishop Lacey's Perignation, in Haggerty).
The building measures 9.23m (9.14m on north wall) x 4.68m externally and is aligned E-W. Its walls are 0.67m thick and constructed of locally quarried, uncoursed, grey stone. One quarry is near to the east wall and another is 50m downslope (SS43NE-237), though open veins of stone outcrop elsewhere on the hill slopes. Judging by an in situ gable end stone in the west wall, the roof stood at a height of 6.1m and was pitched at 45 degrees. The initial building mortar includes a coarse aggregate of beach sand and subsequently the whole structure was rendered with a finer mortar and the putlog holes filled in. The chapel was built direct onto a stone outcrop and thus has an uneven floor. Limited investigation has shown that the rock is overlain by 0.15m of black soil above a thin layer of red clay. The latter may have been levelling material. Magnetic anomalies beneath the east window probably relate to c corroded nail in the wall.
Consent was applied for for conservation measures and was granted in 1990. A survey (Haggerty) was carried out in advance of necessary conservation works, which were aimed at; the south west corner of the chapel, where at ground level the masonry has crumbled away, causing instability above; the north wall internally, where missing masonry at ground level had caused instability; the south side of the bellcote which had been undercut by collapsed masonry. Haggerty confirms the presence of put-log holes on the north and south walls, with further holes on either side of the bellcote. The upper part of this, west, wall was a double wall and the whole was "honeycombed" with shafts, some oblique. Haggerty argues that these may have had a secondary function to hold scaffolding, but that primarily they were for ventilation, the oblique angles preventing draughts. |
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