History
St Michael’s Church in Bosherston was built in the 14th century on the site of an earlier church. It was first recorded in 1291, when it was listed in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica under the name Stakepol Bosser. Its annual income was then estimated at £8, of which 16 shillings were to be given to the king as part of the papal support for the Crusade. In the 15th century the church was enlarged by the west tower and the extension of the chancel eastwards by one bay. In 1855 it was renovated by the Earl of Cawdor of Stackpole, on whose lands it stood and whose ancestors had held the patronage of the church. During the renovation of the church a north vestry was built.
Architecture
The church was built on a cross plan, consisting of a rather short, rectangular nave measuring 10 x 5.5 meters, a narrower and initially short chancel, short transept to the north and south, and a porch in front of the southern entrance to the nave. In the 15th century, a slender tower was added on the western side of the nave, built on a square plan with sides measuring 4.9 meters, with a shape that, unusually for the region, did not tapered in the upper parts, but ended with a common battlemented parapet. It was probably then that the chancel was extended from the east, which eventually obtained dimensions of 6.5 x 4 meters. After the extension, it was again closed from the east with a straight wall.
None of the church elements were supported by buttresses, only the chancel and tower were reinforced at the base by a batter and the southern wall of the chancel near the nave was reinforced with a pilaster. It was created at the place where the southern transept was connected to the chancel by a diagonal passage, a solution popular in medieval Wales from the 14th century. It is possible that the northern transept was also originally connected to the northern wall of the chancel in a similar way. Both the diagonal passages (squints) and the pilaster were associated with the rood screen located inside the church.
The church could originally have been lit by narrow pointed or lancet windows, simple or with tracery trefoils, certainly splayed towards the interior. A larger window or triad of narrow openings could traditionally have filled the eastern wall of the chancel. The two-light windows may have been located in the gable walls of the transept. The walls of the tower were pierced with slit openings with straight and lancet heads. The smallest were placed in the staircase projecting from the south-eastern corner of the tower.
Inside the church, the nave, the ground floor of the tower and both arms of the transept were topped with a pointed barrel vault. The interior of the porch was also vaulted. The nave was connected to the transept and to the ground floor of the tower with pointed arcades, with the later tower arcade being chamfered, while the transept arcades created very simple, without moulding or any decorations. The original chancel arcade may have had a similar form. Just in front of it, in the Middle Ages there was a wooden rood screen, which was attached using stone corbels on the sides of the archivolt of the chancel arcade.
Current state
The northern sacristy of today’s church is an entirely modern addition. The early Gothic windows were replaced in the 19th century by neo-Gothic ones, although it is possible that some of them imitate the form of the original medieval openings. The original narrow and elongated windows have survived only in the tower. Also original are the transept arcades and the tower arcade, the small window in the squint from the transept to the chancel, the vaulting of the nave, transept, porch and ground floor of the tower, the parapet of the tower, the wall recess by the chancel arcade, the piscinas and the corbels from the rood screen. The current chancel arcade, the cornice above the chancel batter and the roof truss in its interior date from the 19th century. The original furnishings include the Norman font, the tomb of the Duchess of Buckingham in the northern transept and the 14th-century tomb of an unknown crusader in the southern transept.
bibliography:
Barker T.W., Green F., Pembrokeshire Parsons, „West Wales historical records”, 1/1911.
Ludlow N., South Pembrokeshire Churches, An Overview of the Churches in South Pembrokeshire, Llandeilo 2000.
Ludlow N., South Pembrokeshire Churches, Church Reports, Llandeilo 2000.
Salter M., The old parish churches of South-West Wales, Malvern 2003.
The Royal Commission on The Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions in Wales and Monmouthshire. An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, VII County of Pembroke, London 1925.