St Michael and All Angels church is first mentioned in 1139 when it belonged to Bradenstoke Priory. It is likely that the church, together with estates in Bradenstoke and Lyneham, were among the original endowments of the house in c.1139. Pope Lucius III confirmed the appropriation of the church by Bradenstoke in 1182.

There is no mention of a church at Lyneham in the Domesday Book of 1086. After the Dissolution the benefice became a perpetual curacy and after 1868 was deemed a vicarage. In 1864 the need was felt for a church to serve the hamlet of Clack, which lay over a mile from Lyneham parish church. As a result the consolidated chapelry of Bradenstoke-cum-Clack was formed in 1866.

In 1924 the consolidated chapelry of Bradenstoke-cum-Clack, the vicarage of Lyneham, and the rectory of Tockenham were all united to form one benefice. In 1954 Tockenham was separated from the other two churches, which thenceforth became the united benefice of Lyneham with Bradenstoke-cum-Clack.

The church of Lyneham was probably served by canons of Bradenstoke from earliest times and no vicarage was ordained. A canon was described as curate of Lyneham in 1538. After the dissolution of Bradenstoke the Longs, as lay rectors, were responsible for appointing and paying a curate to serve the church, but apparently frequently neglected to do so. In the mid 17th century Edmund Long's failure to make an appointment led to the presentation by the king in 1678 of an incumbent, who was duly instituted by the bishop, the only occasion before the 19th century when this procedure was adopted.

After the break-up of the rectory estate in the mid 17th century the responsibility for providing and paying a curate was said to be divided between the various holders of the parts of the estate.

But no appointments seem to have been made by them and throughout the 18th century the church was served by the incumbents of either Hilmarton or Tockenham, or by the curate of Hilmarton."

After the beginning of the 19th century, when the benefice had been endowed by a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty, the lay rectors, who were also lords of the manor, began to present incumbents regularly, who were licensed, or after 1868, instituted by the bishop. The first such presentation occurs in 1826 when G. H. W. Heneage presented. Thenceforth the advowson followed the descent of the manor. After the union of the benefices of Lyneham, Bradenstoke-cum-Clack, and Tockenham in 1924 the patrons of the three livings retained for a time their rights to present in turn. But after the rectory of Tockenham had been separated from the combined benefice in 1954, the patronage of the united benefice of Lyneham and Bradenstoke-cum-Clack passed to the Lord Chancellor, with whom, in theory, it remained in 1966.

In practice, however, early in the 1960's existing patronage rights were suspended and an agreement reached between the Bishop of Salisbury and the Chaplain-in-Chief R.A.F., whereby R.A.F. chaplains were to serve the churches of Lyneham and Bradenstoke-cum-Clack. Things changed in July 2003, the RAF base was subject to a Strategic Defence review and Lyneham's future use was considered to be surplus to requirements. The Ministry of Defence and Government announced that Wiltshire's premier airbase would close by 2012. With this in mind the Claplaincy service decided to hand over the patronage to Rev Tony Fletcher on the 7th July 2004. St. Michael and All Angels Church Lyneham celebrated the licensing and installation of the new Priest in Charge of the Parish of Lyneham with Bradenstoke with a full congregation.

Beginnings of Church
The history of church architecture divides itself into periods, and into countries or regions and by religious affiliation. The matter is complicated by the fact that buildings put up for one purpose may have been re-used for another; that changes in liturgical practice may result in the alteration of existing buildings; that a building built by one religious group may be used by a successor group with different purposes and that new building techniques may permit changes in style and size.

The first period is that during which the Christian faith was illegal and, in principle, church building did not take place. In the very beginning Christians worshipped along with Jews in synagogues and in private houses. After the separation of Jews and Christians the latter continued to worship in people's houses. Some of these were at the top of several storey houses; others were covered courtyards. One of the earliest of adapted residences is at Dura Europa, built shortly after 200 AD, where two rooms were made into one, by removing a wall, and a dais was set up. To the right of the entrance a small room was made into a baptistry.

Early Christendom
During the period of Roman persecution of Christians, most regular worship took place privately in homes. With the victory of the Roman emperor Constantine at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312AD, Christianity became a lawful and then the privileged religion of the Roman Empire. The faith, already spread around the Mediterranean, now expressed itself in buildings. Their architecture was made to correspond to civic and imperial forms, and so the Basilica, a large rectangular meeting hall became general in east and west, as the model for churches, with a nave and aisles and sometimes galleries and clerestories. Pagan basilicas had as their focus a statue of the emperor; Christian basilicas replaced the emperor with God as king of heaven. At the east end was placed the altar behind which sat the bishop and his presbyters in an apse.

A second stage was the remodelling of the Basilica to produce the porch church or Vollwestwerk. The legalisation of the faith enabled people to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land and in particular to Jerusalem. Over time, there developed a pattern of services during Holy Week following the last week of the life of Christ culminating in the Way of the Cross, sometimes known as the Via Dolorosa from the place of trial to the Calvary, the place of crucifixion. Over the presumed site of the Calvary a Church, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built. At its east end was the presumed place of burial. At the west end was the Calvary. The procession would end with the pilgrims mounting the steps on one side of the west end of the Church to the place of crucifixion and then demounting on the other side. Two staircases, supported by twin towers, thus became necessary for this form of worship. This pattern was widely imitated and twin west towers can be seen in many churches and cathdrals in Europe, notably Westminster Abbey in London, even where the purpose of the towers had long gone.

The period witnessed the division of the empire in the fourth century AD and then its collapse. East and West, Rome and Byzantium (the name of Constantinople, the modern Istanbul) went their separate ways. The final break was the Great Schism of 1054, but the divergence had begun long before that. Orthodox churches were often modelled, as to their plan, on an equal armed cross - the so-called Greek cross. Their interiors were marked by the division of the building by the iconostasis a screen on which were hung sacred pictures and which divided the altar from the body of the Church.

In England, Saxon churches still survive in some places but with the Norman conquest, increasingly the new Romanesque churches, often called Norman in England, became the rule. These were massive in relation to the space they enclosed, their walls pierced by windows with semi-circular arches. Internal vaulting used the same shaped arch. Unsupported roofs were never very wide. Yet some of these buildings were huge and of extraordinary beauty. The Abbey church of St. Mary Madgalene at Vézelay in Burgundy and Durham Cathedral in England are two very different examples of this form.

The next development was due to the mobility of the master masons whose work this was. They followed the Crusades and built their own churches in the Holy Land, most notably the Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem. However they also noticed that the local Muslim architecture deployed the much more flexible two-point or Gothic arch. The semi-circular arch was heavy and, in spite of this, resulted in weaknesses when two barrel vaults intersected. The 'gothic arch' on the other hand was stronger and could be used to make for wider unsupported spaces.

Thus there came to Europe, first the narrow, lancet window and then wider two-point arches, called in England the Early English style with its simple 'Y' tracery. The period is reckoned by Pevsner to run from about 1190 to 1250. In spite of its name the style was at one time called the French style and it is to be found all over the British Isles. One of the most notable buildings of the period is Salisbury Cathedral.

By the late thirteenth century more daringly ornate styles of tracery were tried - the so-called Decorated or curvilinear Period, dating from 1290 - 1350. Here windows became larger, increasing the number of mullions (the vertical bars dividing the main part of the window) between the lights; above them, within the arch of the window, the tracery was formed using shapes styled 'daggers' and 'mouchettes', trefoils and quadrifoils; completely circular rose windows were made, incorporating all manner of shapes. Columns forming the arcades within churches of this period became more slender and elegant, the foliage of the capitals more flowing.

Finally, the Perpendicular style (so-called because the mullions and transoms were vertical and horizontal) allowed huge windows, often filled with stained glass. The style, so described runs from about 1350 until 1530. Sometimes criticised as over formal, the spaces allowing for glass were huge. Another feature was that doorways were often enclosed by squared mouldings and the spaces between the moulding and the door arch - called spandrels - were decorated with quadrifoils etc. Ornate stone ceilings, using so-called fan vaulting, made for huge unsupported spaces. King's College Chapel, Cambridge has magnificent specimens of these. Meanwhile, the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral has an unsupported stone ceiling approximately 30 feet by 80 feet, using a star formation of lierne vaults and bosses.

The period from the Norman Conquest to the advent of the Reformation in the sixteenth century saw an unequalled development in church architecture. Walls became thinner; solid butressses became more elegant flying buttresses surmounted by pinnacles; towers, often surmounted by stone spires became taller, and more decorated, often castellated; internal pillars became more slender; unsupported spaces between them wider; roofs, formerly safely steeply pitched became flatter, often decorated with carved wooden angels and a bestiary; windows occupied more and more of the wall space; decorative carving more freely flowing; figures multiplied, particularly on the west fronts of cathedrals and abbeys. Finally with the cessation of the wars with the French and the apparent ending of the Wars of the Roses with the return of Edward IV in 1471, there was more money around so that new buildings could be put up and existing buildings enlarged. "Hardly had such towers risen on all sides; never had such timber roofs and screens been hewn and carved..." (Harvey) This is the period of the building of wool Churches like Long Melford and Lavenham and of King's College Chapel in Cambridge.

The interiors of mediaeval churches, apart from their many altars and stained glass (which, of course can only be properly seen from inside) had their purpose made visually plain by the almost universal presence of roods, huge figures of the crucified Christ, high above the congregation, mounted on a rood loft at the chancel arch -with steps to enable the priest to climb up; something which no one could miss. A wooden rood screen beneath might have painted on it figures of the apostles and angels.

With the reign of Henry VIII all of this was to be first put in question and then to come to a shuddering halt. On his death, and the accession of Edward VI almost all of the internal decoration was to be destroyed. The chantries and guilds which supported them became illegal or their functions taken from them. Images were removed, saints's days massively reduced.

The Churches echoed to the sound of hammer blows as stone altars and images were smashed, glass broken, font covers and roods and their screens torn town and burnt. Thereafter they became empty places on weekdays and those who had formerly been benefactors were more wary, given the changes of direction of governmental policy which was to last more than 150 years. They spent their money on great houses instead.

Church Commissioners Notice 1954
Under the Union of Benefices Measures 1923 to 1952 Tockenham Benefice separated from Lyneham and Bradenstoke-cum-Clack and Lyneham united with Bradenstoke to view the notice in full click here