Dedications to St Michael are popular in the Welsh border country, where his archangelical protection was sought against the sleeping dragons supposed to lurk in Radnor Forest - see
SO0464 : Where Sleeps the Dragon. The church lies in a circular churchyard under a mound, testimony to the antiquity of the site. It was rebuilt in 1869 on the old plan, thus retaining the pronounced inclination of the chancel and almost the whole of the ancient stone walls. The architect was Henry Curzon and the builders Morgan & Potter of Knighton, the total cost of the restoration being £431. The stained glass of the east window, representing the Crucifixion, is by Arthur O'Connor of London and dates from that time. The 17th-century Holy Table was in the old church, but most of the furnishings are rather more modern.
The name Discoed, though apparently Welsh and implying "under a wood", derives by false etymology from the Saxon Discote "cottage by [Offa's] Dyke" - the name of the manor as recorded in Domesday Book in 1087. The modern pronunciation with paroxytone stress, as recorded by the phonetician Graham Pointon, seems to confirm that origin. Discoed is a chapel of ease for the Parish of St Andrew in Presteigne (Llanandras), which at the disestablishment of the Church in Wales in 1920 elected to remain within the Anglican diocese of Hereford.
The architectural historian Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel particularly admired this church, noting "the treatment of the join of the chancel and nave roofs, where a decorated tie-beam and low arch supporting the gable end enabled a chancel arch to be dispensed with."
St Michael's is listed Grade II
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