Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

This is a parish church dating from the late 12th to 16th centuries, constructed of sandstone rubble with stone slate roofs. The building underwent major restorations in 1883, 1887, and 1912–13. It comprises a late 12th-century west tower and nave, a 13th-century chancel, a 15th or early 16th-century north transept and aisle, and a 14th-century south porch.

The tower rises in four stages separated by deep string courses, with a battered base. Clasping buttresses to the north-west and south-west corners and central pilasters to the north, west, and south penetrate the wall surface and stop above the string dividing the first and second stages. These buttresses and pilasters carry wall-shafts, some with scalloped capitals and others with figurative capitals; the longer corner shafts feature spiky open waist-bands. The pilasters additionally each contain round-headed lights. The second stage has a small round-headed light to each face above weatherings of the central pilasters, which terminate at this point. The third stage features a pair of round-headed belfry openings to each of four recessed panels, above which sits a row of nine corbels, the centre one supported on a wall shaft. The fourth stage is plain except for central water spouts just below the final string, which defines a 14th–15th century embattled top. Bell-ringers' entry is through an 18th-century triangular-headed doorway to the east of the south side.

The nave has a large buttress to its south-west corner. A 14th-century south-west window contains two lights with trefoiled heads; two similar restored windows lie to the east of the porch. The north aisle features square-headed two-light windows with cinquefoil heads, two facing north and one facing west. Between the first two is a blocked north door with simple imposts and heavy roll-moulding. The north transept has a large north three-light trefoil-headed window with heavily cusped tracery, and two similarly designed but taller two-light windows facing east and west.

The chancel has a circa 1900 east window similar to the north window of the north transept. Its north side contains a blocked triangular-headed door and a small lancet in a chamfered opening. The south-east window has two trefoil-headed lights with vertical mullions above, matching those in the north transept; to its left are three trefoil-headed lancets and a triangular-headed priests' door.

The south porch features a moulded entrance of four orders with small paterae on the imposts beneath a label with a keystone in the form of a female face. Two side windows are single lights with trefoiled heads and spandrels under square heads. The porch roof comprises two trussed bays with two king posts, moulded ogee tie beams, cusped collars, trefoil-headed wind braces, and longitudinal arch braces. A 12th-century south doorway displays fluted imposts and two roll mouldings to its semi-circular head and jambs.

Interior

The nave has an open wagon roof; the chancel is ceiled. The restored 15th-century nave roof features brattished tie beams between the chancel arch and tower arch containing arch-braced collars with intermittent cusped raking struts; the wall plates are also brattished. The chancel ceiling is late 19th-century. The north aisle has six bays of cusped, restored 15th-century wind braces rising from oak corbels, several of which are carved as heads. The north transept has a heavily restored wagon roof that retains some 15th-century bosses at the junction of rafters and arch braces.

Three octagonal columns separate the nave from the north transept. The 12th-century tower arch consists of two orders with scalloped capitals and a two-centred head. The chancel arch comprises two semicircular-headed orders. A rood loft opening lies to the north side of the chancel arch under a triangular head, with an adjacent light for varnished newel stairs. A blocked 12th-century light exists to the west of the porch. The west face of the north-east respond contains a small trefoil-headed niche.

The chancel's south-east window retains 15th-century stained glass in its tracery, featuring fragments of black-letter 15th-century script and a haloed male head. A 13th-century piscina in the east wall has a circular drain supported on an asymmetrically designed corbel. Also in the east wall is a monument to Sir Herbert Perrot, died 1683, comprising an aedicule with a broken pediment supported by barley-sugar columns. A two-centred arched recess, probably for a tomb, exists in the north wall. A 15th-century oak credence with an ogee head stands in the south wall. The pulpit is in early 17th-century style, probably largely dating to circa 1900. A 14th-century font has an octagonal bowl on an octagonal stem and base. A wall monument to Ann Meats, died 1830, situated beneath the rood opening, is unusual in bearing a large signature "Richard Yeomans Bod" (possibly Bodenham); it features a gilded obelisk plaque above a bird holding a laurel in its beak. The tower contains most unusual features.