Description: The parish church dedicated to St. Michael with St. Mary is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in England. It has been described as a cathedral in miniature and perhaps this is hardly surprising as Melbourne was the southern refuge in the Middle Ages for the Bishops of Carlisle. There has been a church in Melbourne for many centuries. The Domesday Book records a church and priest here in 1086. The present church was built about 1120 and most of the original masonry is intact except for the east end which has been reduced and mutilated. The roofs and naves and aisles and the aisle windows date from the restoration of the 1630s. The restoration of 1859-62 by Gilbert Scott was sensitively done for the time.