Our Church History

St. Michael and All Angels, Rearsby

Welcome to our village church

There may have been a church here since Saxon times. A priest is mentioned in the Domesday Book 1086.

The first recorded named priest was Thomas Basset in 1224 when Ralph de Follville and Ralph Chamberlin endowed the church.

The oldest surviving unaltered parts of the church are the arches of the south aisle along with its piscina (for a side altar) and the sedilia (seats for three priests) in the chancel. They date to the 13th century.

The arches of the north aisle are later and date to the 14th century, along with the chancel.

The clerestory (high) windows and chancel windows are 15th century replacements.

The tower is possibly the latest edition in the 15th Century. It has 4 pinnacles. There are 3 bells, one pre reformation, one dated 1607 and one dated 1652. There are several memorial plaques on the tower walls.

The decayed ironstone walling was cased in granite during Victorian restoration and the south porch built.

Other points of interest:

• Font – unusual drum shaped 13th century type with later Purbeck marble shafts. The rim of wheatsheaves was formerly painted. The four sides are intended to remind us that God’s children come from all quarters of the earth.

• The small pieces of medieval painted glass in the south aisle, east window.

• The war memorial tablet, 1919, on the north wall and an original battlefield cross.

• The memorial cabinet installed in 1977.

• The modern, locally designed and embroidered altar frontal and pulpit hanger.

• Outside: a Medieval gable cross at the end of the chancel. Below it two small filled windows or angelus bell frames probably incorporated when the wall was raised for taller windows in the 15th century.

• The murder gravestone: ‘Will the son of Edward Hubber 1712’, also has a Belvoir angel. South side of graveyard.