Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

Parish church substantially of the 13th century with 14th-century additions and alterations, and a 15th-century west tower. The exterior has been much restored in the 19th century. The building is constructed of pebble, flint, clunch rubble, dressed clunch and limestone, with a steeply pitched slate roof. Nearly all of the church is rendered except for part of the tower.

The plan comprises a west tower, nave with north aisle and porch, north and south chapels, and chancel. The west tower dates to the 15th century and rises in three stages on a splayed plinth with embattling. It features a restored west window and west doorway with three-stage set-back buttressing. A half-octagonal 15th-century staircase turret projects from the south side. The bell chamber openings are single cinquefoil lights set within clunch surrounds.

The nave originates from the 13th century but includes a 15th-century clerestory of two windows to each side, since restored. The south chapel is of similar date, also restored in the 14th century and later, and contains a 14th-century window of two cinquefoil lights with reticulated tracery in a two-centred head. Part of the arch of a 14th-century window is visible in the south wall of the chancel.

Interior features include a tower arch with three continuous moulded orders in a two-centred arch. The nave is 13th-century but possesses a 14th-century arcade on the north side in two bays, comprising two-centred arches of two chamfered orders on octagonal columns with octagonal capitals. At the responds, the arches spring from corbels carved with masks. A similar double-chamfered two-centred arch connects the north aisle and north chapel. The arch from the nave to the north chapel is two-centred with two chamfered orders, the outer terminating in a broach stop, with a holdwater base to the half-octagonal responds. The arch to the south chapel is similar but has the broach stop to the outer chamfer. A 13th-century lancet window appears in the west wall of the south chapel, and a 13th-century colonette belongs to a piscina in the south-east corner. Part of a hollow-moulded chamfered arch is visible in the east wall and possibly formed part of a reredos to an altar. Wall painting of scrolled foliage is similar to that of the 13th century found in the side altar to St Thomas Beckett at the Church of St Edmund, Hauxton.

The 13th-century font is of stone with a square basin having chamfered corners and large scroll stops. It stands on a column with moulded capital and base, with similar subsidiary columns at the corners.

The 14th-century chancel was almost entirely rebuilt in the 19th century and contains floor slabs to Robert Swann (1727) and his wife Elizabeth (1680). Wall monuments in the chancel include one to John Stevenson (1748) in grey marble cartouche. The nave contains a war memorial of copper made by members of Newton Metalwork School, founded by the Hurrell family in the 19th century, and wall monuments chiefly to members of the Pemberton family, all of 19th-century date. Named monuments include Francis (1809) and Mrs Anne (1815), by Rossi; William (1828) by the younger Westmacott; Christopher (1850) by Physick; Christopher (1870) by Noble; Mrs Montagu (1871) by Boehm; and William Ward (1900) in brass.