Priory Church Of St Margaret Of Antioch

The Priory Church of St. Margaret of Antioch is a small Benedictine priory built around 1080-90 by Count John and given to the abbey of St. Jacut in Brittany. It has since been used as a barn and is now cared for by the Department of the Environment. Despite some restoration, the priory remains largely intact and is a rare example of Romanesque architecture.

The walls are primarily made of clunch laid in a herringbone pattern, with a Barnack limestone plinth and dressings around the door and window openings. The roofs have been rebuilt, with the nave's roof raised. The layout includes a nave, choir, and apsed sanctuary, which originally featured a semi-domical roof. The west end displays two 16th-century buttresses made 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 likely date from the 16th century. The south doorway of the choir and most window openings are from the 13th century and feature Caernarvon heads. The apse has original pilaster buttresses made of Barnack stone.

Inside, there is a round-headed choir arch that is double recessed and unmoulded, supported by responds with two attached half-round columns that have cushion capitals and splayed bases. There are vacant nook shafts on the west side. Although the sanctuary arch has been demolished, the rectangular piers remain with moulded capitals and bases. At the west end of the nave, there are three bullseye window openings.