Parish Church Of Saint Margaret

The Parish Church of Saint Margaret is a Grade II* listed building with origins in the 14th and 15th centuries, but it was extensively renovated between 1879 and 1880 by architects Burton and Wood. The church is constructed from coursed ironstone and cobblestones, featuring ashlar dressings and gabled clay tile roofs. It consists of a chancel, nave, a narrow north aisle, and a west tower.

The chancel has two-stage buttresses at the corners and along the north and south walls. It features a pointed-arched east window with three trefoiled lights, a northwest window with two trefoiled lights that retains some 14th-century tracery, and a southwest window of the same design but without tracery. There is a 15th-century pointed-arched priest's door and an early 14th-century pointed chancel arch.

In the nave, there are two-stage buttresses on the northwest and southwest sides. An early 14th-century three-bay north arcade features pointed arches. The south elevation has three two-light pointed-arched windows, with only the western window being trefoiled. There is also a pointed-arched south doorway. The north aisle is more of a narrow passageway, replacing the original aisle, and contains three windows with paired pointed-arched lights.

The west tower retains its original tower arch, although the rest of the tower was rebuilt in 1880. It has two stages, with angle buttresses and embattled parapets. The lower stage includes a pointed-arched and trefoiled two-light west window, while the upper stage features paired louvred windows on the south and west elevations.

Inside, there is a cinquefoiled ogee-headed piscina and sedilia from the 15th century, although they have been reworked. The font is octagonal on a heavy octagonal shaft and is believed to date from the 17th or 18th century. Notable monuments include a wall monument in the chancel to Edmund Castell, a Semitic scholar and professor of Arabic at Cambridge, who was rector of Higham Gobion from 1674 until his death in 1685. The last line of his tablet is in Arabic and translates to "He elected to be buried in this spot in hopes of a better." In the nave, there is a wall monument to Thomas Halfpenny, who died in 1684, and brasses in the chancel wall commemorate Jane Cason, who died in 1603, and Catherine Browne, who died in 1602, both daughters of the Butler family, along with their children. The roofs and pews were added in 1880.