Church Of St Margaret Of Antioch

Church of St Margaret of Antioch

Parish church with 12th-century origins. The building underwent substantial development over the medieval period: a late 13th or early 14th-century south aisle was enlarged further in the 14th century, the tower was raised in the 15th century, and the south aisle was altered in the 16th century. The chancel and nave were rebuilt, and the north aisle, porch, vestry with organ bay, and spirelet were added in 1871 by W. Butterfield in the High Victorian Gothic style.

The exterior is constructed of flint and pebble rubble with some herringbone coursing in the tower, knapped on the 19th-century elevations, with stone dressings throughout. Roofs are tiled and leaded, with the spirelet featuring leaded and shingled surfaces. The plan comprises a three-bay nave extended by one bay to the east, a west tower, a south aisle extended to the west, north aisle, porch, chancel, and southeast vestry with organ bay.

The three-stage west tower has two lower medieval stages. The lowest stage to the west features a tracered two-light pointed arched 19th-century window. The second stage has three restored 12th-century round-headed windows with roll-moulded surrounds and bases. A three-stage diagonal buttress is positioned to the northwest. A string course marks the transition to the 15th-century belfry stage, which has two-light louvred openings with pointed arched foiled heads and an embattled parapet with a string course decorated with grotesque carvings. The octagonal spirelet has a squat leaded base above an open tracered bell chamber, with a shingled head and weathervane.

The south aisle's 14th-century added bay, now forming a vestry, extends west to the tower. A 14th-century curvilinear tracered two-light pointed arched window marks the west elevation. The south elevation displays a blocked 14th-century entrance with a double wave-moulded pointed arch and hood mould to the left of centre. Three 16th-century three-light windows with hollow-moulded four-centred arched heads and hood moulds feature rectilinear tracered heads, except for a slightly later central window. A 19th-century vestry entrance sits to the far left, with a central buttress and plinth and string courses throughout. The aisle has diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet.

The 19th-century north aisle features three two-light windows with pointed foiled heads, with a string course at sill level and stone bands at sill and impost levels extending to the eaves. A diagonal buttress to the northeast has a similar two-light window to the east return. The porch, positioned towards the west end, is gabled with an outer moulded pointed arch, a coped parapet with ridge cross, and kneelers above small buttresses on returns with string courses. The inner entrance has a heavily moulded arch with shafted jambs. The unbuttressed west end of the north aisle displays a hexafoil opening with a string course surround. The chancel is as wide and nearly as tall as the nave, both with steeply pitched roofs and coped gable parapets with ridge crosses to the east, and crest tiles on the nave. A foundation stone to the northeast, dated "S. Marks Day 1871", records the 1871 rebuilding. The chancel to the north has two two-light windows matching those on the north aisle, with a ball-flower frieze to close eaves. The chancel's east end features a double plinth and a large three-light pointed arched window with foiled tracered head, with string courses at sill level continuous as hood mould. The lean-to vestry and organ bay to the southeast has an entrance and two-light windows matching those on the north aisle, with similar stone dressings.

Interior

The 12th-century tower arch is off-centre to the widened nave, a plain round arch with splayed impost blocks. Within the tower, a 14th-century chamfered pointed arched doorway leads to the south aisle, above which sits a 12th-century round-headed window with deeply splayed embrasure. The south arcade is late 13th-century with three bays extended by one bay to the east in the 19th century. The arcade features double-order pointed arches with chamfering except for an inward-facing inner hollow moulding and broach stops to the outer mouldings, supported on octagonal piers with moulded bases and bell capitals. The added bay is taller but follows the same pattern. The 19th-century four-bay north arcade follows this pattern. A 19th-century broad pointed chancel arch has semi-octagonal responds. A 19th-century sharply pointed double arcade connects the chancel to the organ bay.

The south aisle retains grotesque corbels to the roof, largely of 19th-century date with some earlier stop-chamfered timbers with arched braces at the west end. The nave has a hexagonally vaulted roof with arched braces; the chancel roof is similar with applied X-ribs and foiled tracery to the east end. A 14th-century piscina in the south aisle near the east end retains its lower portion, featuring wave-moulded jambs and a hexafoil bowl. The chancel displays Gothic polychromy with blind niches flanking the reredos to the east, double sedilia to the south, and varicoloured marbles, alabaster, tiles, and painted decoration on the walls. An encaustic tiled floor and risers run to stone steps.

Notable furnishings include a good pulpit dated 1626, octagonal with richly carved arched and foliate panels, shaped brackets to the book rest, and a panelled back rising to a tester with carved soffit and pendant drops. Nineteenth-century choir stalls incorporate remains of a 15th-century chancel screen with tracered panels. The south aisle contains a large late medieval oak chest with numerous iron bands. In the tower is a late medieval ladder to the belfry with chamfered arrises. A square font by Butterfield features an inner circular stem with eight outer marble shafts to a massive bowl with Gothic tracery. Also by Butterfield are seats with unusually shaped bench ends, a Gothic timber reading desk, painted iron candelabras, and iron gates in the tower arch. An organ by Bevington and Sons, installed in 1883, has a case designed by Butterfield.

Monuments in the south aisle west wall include a reset brass to A. Willet, died 1621; an oval marble tablet inscribed with arms above to T. Rutherforth, died 1771; and a classical epitaph with scrolled jambs to A. Eyre, died 1716. The south aisle south wall displays a reset brass palimpsest of 15th and 16th-century date, with a carved bishop's head in the window sill above. The wall of the organ bay to the south contains an iron epitaph to Mrs. A. Brownrigge, died 1630.

Glass includes an 1872 Crucifixion in the east window by Hardman, figural fragments with the date 1536 in the south aisle, a small 14th-century Crucifixion in the north aisle east end, and a small 14th-century representation of God in the west tower.