Church of St Michael

About

St Michael's Church is the parish church of Barton-le-Street, a village in North Yorkshire, in England. A church in Barton-le-Street was mentioned in the Domesday Book. A successor was built in Barton-le-Street in or around the 1160s, which the Victoria County History states "seems to have been a remarkably rich example... the sculptured stones preserved in the present building being of a very unusual character". In 1871, the church was completely rebuilt, in the Norman style, to designs by Perkin and Son. The current church occupies the same footprint as the medieval one, and incorporates almost all the sculpture from that structure. Historic England state that "this sculpture is without close known parallels in England", instead being similar to examples in Western France, such as the Church of Notre-Dame la Grande, Poitiers. It has been Grade I listed since 1954.

The church is built of limestone, with a slate roof. It consists of a four-bay nave and a two-bay chancel, with a combined vestry and organ chamber to the south. There is a north porch, and a bellcote at the west end. The windows are round-headed, and the walls are supported by buttresses. The capitals of the buttresses...