Nevertheless, the church is certainly from the late Anglo-Saxon era and there may have been an earlier building on the present site.

In the late 10th[1] or early 11th[2] century a stone church was built on a simple plan consisting of a chancel and nave.

[1] Early in the 12th century a north aisle and then a south aisle were added, linked with the nave by arcades of plain round-headed arches cut in the latter's north and south walls, leaving sections of Saxon wall as piers.

Another Early English lancet window from this period survives in the north wall of the chancel.

[1] Also in the 15th century, a wooden tympanum was inserted in the 14th-century chancel arch and a Doom was painted on it, spreading over the upper part of the east wall of the nave.

In its final form it had paired bell-openings, an embattled parapet and a polygonal stair-turret that was taller than the tower.

[5] After the Dissolution, this fair was discontinued and replaced with one at Michaelmas on 29 September,[5] possibly in reference to St Michael's church.

St Michael's present wooden pulpit, tester and altar table are late 16th[2] or early 17th century.

[2] The monument is a life-sized sculpture of Bacon seated in a relaxed pose in an armchair.

[2] In 1896[2] or 1898[1] Edmund Beckett (1st Baron Grimthorpe) had the west end of the church remodelled to his own designs and at his own expense.

[2] The architect John C. Rogers directed further restoration work in 1934–35 and designed a second vestry that was added on the north side of the chancel in 1938.

Rogers also wrote a book, The Parish Church of St. Michael, St. Albans – a Short Illustrated History, which was published in 1965, reprinted in 1973 and revised in 1982.

Samuel Knight, who had foundries at Reading and London,[7] cast the third, fourth, fifth and sixth bells in 1739.

[8] John Taylor & Co of Loughborough cast the seventh and tenor bells for Beckett's new northwest tower in 1897,[8] which was also the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Gillett & Johnston of Croydon cast the treble and second bells in 1953,[8] the year of Elizabeth II's coronation.

In 1872, Henry Jones built a pipe organ for St Michael's Church.

They bear the inscription "In thanksgiving to Almighty God for the preservation of this church through a thousand years 948 - 1948" on the north case, and "This organ was enlarged and rebuilt in 1950 by the gifts of parishioners and the legacy of Kate Coulter" on the south.

[2] Historic England cites as the principal reasons for the listing: the extensive late Anglo-Saxon fabric, the phases of expansion in the High Middle Ages, the 15th-century nave roof, the tympanum with surviving part of the 15th-century Doom painting, the late Elizabethan or early Jacobean pulpit, and the Jacobean monument to Francis Bacon.