Sykes son, the fifth baronet, employed George Edmund Street to design a series of murals for interior decoration, depicting a range of bible stories.

[2] The architectural historian David Neave writes that the benefice was granted to the abbey by Walter Espec in 1121 and the church rebuilt shortly thereafter.

[2] By the 19th century, the church was in a state of dilapidation, and Sir Tatton Sykes the Fourth brought in J. L. Pearson to undertake a complete restoration in 1855–1857.

[4] The mid-19th century was a period of great turbulence for the established church: the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, in 1859, had challenged orthodox thinking on the creation of the world.

[6] Writing of the murals in his 1972 guide to York and the East Riding,[7] when their condition was already "pitiful",[8] Pevsner noted, "it is essential that they be preserved".

[9] In Bridget Cherry and Simon Bradley's volume, The Buildings of England: A Celebration, he records how the committee identified the murals at St Michael and All Angels as a suitable project and worked to raise the £100,000 required.

[1] The dado of tiles in a "Spanish" style, which runs under the murals, was manufactured by Frederick Garrard of Millwall at a cost of £166.