Church Of St Margaret

SD 90 SW, 780-1/3/16

OLDHAM, CHAPEL ROAD (north-east side), Church of St Margaret

II

Parish church. 1877-79. By R Knill Freeman. Coursed and squared rubble, cut in small blocks. Graded slate roof with ridge cresting. NW tower (1906), nave with two aisles and clerestory. Transepts, vestry and chapel either side of chancel. Tower has three principal stages, with west doorway with shafts to archway, and plate traceried window to north. Decorated windows and clock in upper stage, and triple chamfered lights to bell chamber. Clasping buttresses, and embattled parapet. 5-light Decorated west window, with war memorial in traceried panels below. Lean-to aisles, expressed as three bays each with paired wide lancet windows. Paired Decorated clerestory lights with sandstone ashlar dressings in shallow panels. 4-light Decorated windows to transepts. Octagonal turret with spirelet to north transept. Chancel chapel has 3-light mullioned and transomed windows. 5-light Decorated east window to chancel. 2-storeyed north vestry.

INTERIOR: 5-bay arcade of clustered shafts in which single-banded marble shaft with foliate capital carries square wall pilaster supporting cambered trusses of coffered boarded ceiling. Carved heads as capitals to responds. Subsidiary low and narrow arch at west end with angel corbels. Wider eastern arches to transepts, and higher blind traceried clerestory over. Shallow segmental arches across eastern ends of aisles, probably serving as buttresses. Organ chamber in north transept with organ by Hills of London, 1886. Chapel to south. Wide chancel arch with shafts. Canted oak traceried chancel screen on stone base with ogival central arch and coved canopy. Integral pulpit with paired open traceried panels in each face. Stained glass: south transept window by Capronnier, dated 1887. West window also Capronnier, dated 1884. East window in medieval style with narrative in dark coloured medallions, 1882. Medallion in north-west window said to have come from earlier church on site. Various marble memorial tablets on west wall, including one commemorating James Wolfenden, a mathematician, d.1841.

Listing NGR: SD9108103101