St Margarets Church

St Margarets Church

This parish church on the north-east side of Walmgate in York is a Grade I listed building of major historical and architectural importance. It began as a late 12th-century structure and has been substantially modified over the centuries, undergoing significant rebuilding following Civil War damage.

The church comprises a four-bay continuous chancel and nave with a north aisle, a south vestry and porch, and a west tower. The building is constructed principally of magnesian limestone with slate roofs to the nave and aisle, and a stone slate roof to the vestry. The tower, rebuilt in 1684-85, is of orange-red brick in random bond with stone dressings to its east face, plinth, quoins and window surrounds.

The exterior displays a twin-gabled east end standing on a double chamfered plinth with three-stage buttresses. The east window contains three cinquefoiled lights with curvilinear tracery in a two-centred hollow-chamfered opening, while the north aisle window has two trefoiled lights similarly set. Glazed trefoils occupy the apex of each gable. The north side also features a double chamfered plinth with three-stage buttresses, punctuated by windows of paired trefoiled lights in square-headed openings. The westernmost window on this side has been altered to goods doors, reflecting the building's former use as a warehouse.

The south side has a double chamfered plinth to its eastern section and a single chamfered plinth to the west. A buttressed and gabled porch dominates the south-west corner, featuring a heavily decorated semicircular arch of four orders beneath a defaced hoodmould. The arch springs from a continuous impost band supported by cushion capitals on engaged shafts and responds. The outer order is carved with vine trails springing from double capitals on zig-zag responds, while the inner orders display carvings of grotesque masks, birds, beasts, and human figures including a pelican, doves, horsemen, and huntsmen. The capitals above show biblical figures and mythological scenes, and a continuous impost band displays entwined foliage. Within the porch, the blocked door arch features a heavily carved vertical face and soffit with motifs including flowers and stars running over a beaded arris and enclosed in open circles; the shafts are coupled and engaged. The inner responds of the porch contain semicircular round-headed niches, and the gable apex is crowned by an original but defaced Crucifix.

The south side windows are two-light ogee-headed designs set in square-headed double hollow-chamfered surrounds. The easternmost window has been altered to accommodate a gabled vestry on a chamfered plinth, built in the late 15th century. The vestry's south window matches those in the nave, its east window is blocked by a cement panel, and an inserted shouldered doorway lies to the west. A replacement Maltese cross has been inset into the vestry's gable apex.

The tower of 1684-85 is divided into a tall lower stage beneath a set-back belfry. Windows inserted into the lower stage on its north and west faces feature two trefoiled ogee-arched lights in square-headed surrounds. Higher on the north side is an original one-light rectangular window in a quoined and chamfered surround. The belfry openings are louvred lancets in chamfered quoined surrounds, arranged in pairs to the north, south, and west, and singly to the east. Moulded strings run beneath the belfry and the embattled parapet, which is topped by defaced pinnacles.

The south porch was not originally part of this church. It was reset here, probably during the 1684-85 rebuilding undertaken to repair Civil War damage, having been salvaged from the ruined chapel of the hospital of St Nicholas.

The interior has not been fully inspected for this listing, though historical records indicate that the four-bay north arcade features double chamfered pointed arches springing from octagonal piers with matching responds. Sections of this arcade were partly rebuilt in the 19th century. An arched piscina with a seven-lobed bowl is positioned in the chancel against the east wall. The roofs, which employ arch-braced collar beam construction, date from 1851-52, when the north aisle was rebuilt and the arcade restored under the direction of T. Pickersgill. Many monuments have been recorded within the building.

The church underwent various 20th-century alterations and remains an important example of medieval parish church architecture modified and adapted over centuries of use and changing needs.