Church Of St Margaret

Church of St. Margaret

This is a parish church of the 14th and 15th centuries, substantially restored in 1862 by Charles Kirk of Sleaford when the chancel was largely rebuilt. The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with coursed and squared limestone rubble, and is covered with lead and plain tiled roofs.

The church comprises a western tower with spire, a clerestoried nave with aisles, a chancel, and a south porch. The tower is a three-stage structure of the 15th century with stepped corner buttresses decorated with cusped knopped gablettes. It features a chamfered plinth, three string courses, and a battlemented parapet with a fleuron frieze and gargoyles. The tower is topped with a set-back octagonal spire having two tiers of lucarnes in the principal directions. The belfry stage contains two-light ogee-headed louvred openings with brattished transomes, whilst the other three sides have a single cusped light to the second stage. The western doorway has a four-centred arched head with deep hollow moulding and fleuron frieze, with above it a tall three-light window featuring cusped heads, panel tracery, and brattished transomes. On the north side is an angled stair tower.

The north aisle contains three-light 15th-century windows with cusped ogee heads and panel tracery at the west and east ends, with three matching windows along the north side. There is a continuously moulded and pointed doorway. The aisle has a plain moulded parapet. The clerestory displays an embattled and cusped panelled parapet with eight triple-light windows featuring panel tracery. The chancel east wall was rebuilt and shortened in the 19th century and is lit by a four-light Perpendicular window. The south side of the chancel contains a continuously moulded blocked 14th-century doorway with one label stop, and a four-light segmental-headed window with cusped ogee head and brattished transom.

The east wall of the south aisle contains a wide three-light late 14th-century window with four-centred arched head, ogee heads to the lights, flowing tracery, and brattished transom. The south wall contains three three-light 14th-century windows with reticulated tracery, and a matching window in the west end. The clerestory matches that on the north. A gabled 19th-century south porch has a tall moulded pointed arch with a single chamfered and moulded hood and triple filleted responds. The interior door is deeply hollow moulded and filleted with a richly moulded hood.

Interior

The 15th-century four-bay nave arcades have continuously wave-moulded outer orders and similar inner orders on brattished capitals and half-round shafts. Hood moulds feature figured label stops. The tall 15th-century tower arch has two continuously moulded outer orders and a deep inner order on annular responds and half-round shafts, with a vaulted tower chamber containing a circular bell hole. A double order of continuously moulded chancel arch lies beyond.

The contemporary nave roof comprises four main bays with cambered ties having pierced spandrels, queen posts, and fleurons. It is supported on wall posts mounted on carved stone corbels alternating with wall shafts to the main bays. One tie beam is painted with the date 1698 and the churchwardens' names, indicating a restoration date. The shafts are linked by continuous roll moulding to the clerestory sill. A facetted stone-panelled turret to the rood loft stair has a brattished top, a four-centred arch doorway with ogee finial and cusped panels, and above it the archway to the vanished rood loft. A small piscina exists in the north aisle, whilst a large cusped piscina is in the south aisle. The 19th-century roofs cover the aisles and chancel. In the west wall of the nave the scar of a former nave is visible.

Fittings are largely of the 19th century apart from an elegant 15th-century octagonal font with angels and inscribed panelled base and stem. A late 18th-century hood and an ironbound churchwardens' chest are also present.

Monuments include a marble wall plaque in the chancel north wall to Edward Brown, who died in 1739, featuring fluted Corinthian pilasters and an escutcheon, made by Palmer. Beneath this is a ledger slab depicting a priest, Richard Peresone, who died in 1472. In the nave is a tablet by Blackwell to Thomas Duckett, who died in 1822.