Priory Church Of St Margaret Of Antioch

TL 6474 ISLEHAM CHURCH STREET (North Side) 14/10 Priory Church of St. Margaret of Antioch /formerly listed as Priory (now barn)7 1.12.51

I

A small Benedictine priory of c.1080-90 built by Count John and given to the abbey of St. Jacut in Brittany. Later it was used as a barn and now it is in the care of the Department of the Environment. Although restoration has taken place, the priory is substantially intact and remains a rare example of Romanesque work. The walls are principally of clunch laid in herringbone pattern with Barnack limestone plinth and dressings to door and window openings. The roofs have been rebuilt and that of the nave has been raised. Plan of nave, choir and apsed sanctuary, originally with a semi-domical roof. The west end has two C16 buttresses of flint with red brick quoins and a single round- headed lancet window. The barn doors in the north and south walls of the nave are also probably of the C16. The south doorway of the choir and most of the window openings are C13 with Caernarvon heads. The apse has original pilaster buttresses of Barnack. Interior. Round-headed choir arch, double recessed and unmoulded, on responds each with two attached half round columns with cushion capitals and splayed bases. Vacant nook shafts on west side. Sanctuary arch has been demolished but the rectangular piers have survived with moulded capitals and bases. At the west end of the nave there are three bulls eye window openings. RCHM: Record Card. Pevsner: Buildings of England, p.416.

Listing NGR: TL6424574349