St Michael's and All Angels
Services
There is a service at 11.00 am each Sunday. At present the pattern is as follows:
1st Sunday Parish Communion
2nd Sunday Morning Prayer
3rd Sunday Family Service/Morning Prayer
4th Sunday Parish Communion
5th Sunday Morning Prayer
The form of service is taken from Common Worship and reflects the season of the Church’s year. Lectionary readings are normally followed. Members of the congregation are actively involved in reading and leading the intercessions.
Coffee and biscuits are served after every service.
About Us
The church is on the edge of the village of Monkton Combe; it can hold about 100, expanded to about 200 by additional chairs on some occasions eg weddings, funerals and the Christmas Carol Service. It has an 8-bell carillon, installed in the 1920s, a conventional 2-manual organ with pedals and a piano. Victorian pine pews are sited in the nave and south aisle, the north aisle having been cleared to provide a coffee area and children’s corner. The east ends of the aisles form an organ vestry and a clergy vestry on either side of the chancel.
Successive generations have cared for the fabric of the building. In recent years, the clock has been restored, the roof retiled and interior plasterwork repaired and resecured. Currently, the lighting systems in the church are being redesigned and upgraded. Apart from Monkton Senior School Chapel, St Michael’s is the only place of worship in the parish.
The church sits in a large and attractive churchyard which has served as the burial ground for both Combe Down and Monkton Combe. It is now closed for burials except for the interment of ashes or burials in family graves, the latest of these being the burial of Harry Patch, ‘The Last Fighting Tommy’. His grave has attracted wide interest, and occasional services have been held at its side eg a recent commemoration by ‘The Western Front Association’.
The present church of St Michael and All Angels was built in the 1860s, replacing an earlier building, parts of which are believed to have been Saxon, associated, as was the village itself, with the monks of Bath Abbey.
The church also has strong historic links with Monkton Combe School which was founded in 1868 by the then vicar of Monkton Combe. It is a Christian school, in the evangelical tradition of the Anglican Church. Whilst the school now has its own chapel, links between church and school continue to this day, the School Chaplain occasionally leading services in the church and school pupils being welcome to attend. Several members of staff past and present attend St Michael’s.