Church Of St Margaret

The Church of St. Margaret is a parish church dating from the 15th century, with alterations and partial rebuilding in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is constructed of flint with stone dressings; the south aisle is rendered and brick, and the vestry is brick; the roofs are slate, with a lead roof over the south aisle. The church comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, south aisle, and south porch.

The squat west tower of the 15th century has angle buttresses. It contains two-light sound openings with foiled heads, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles in the form of seated figures, two of which have been renewed. The south porch is of flint with a brick parapet, and features a south doorway with engaged shafts. The south aisle was rebuilt in the 17th century and has three square-headed, two-light Perpendicular windows with panel tracery and drip moulds. A moulded brick and stone finial is situated at the south-east corner of the aisle. The chancel has a square-headed three-light south window with Perpendicular tracery. The east window was restored in the 19th century and includes a small niche above the window opening. A north doorway is set within a plain chamfered stone surround and brick arch, and two three-light windows with late Perpendicular tracery are also present; these bays are divided by stepped buttresses with flushwork panels. An octagonal chimney with a stone shaft sits upon a brick and flint base. A small, blocked opening with a hollow-chamfered stone surround is also visible.

Inside, the south aisle has a groin-vaulted ceiling, and houses fine 17th-century monuments to the Marsham family. Thomas Marsham (d.1638) is commemorated by a marble effigy reclining on a black sarcophagus on the east wall. On the south wall are kneeling figures of Henry Marsham (d.1678) and his family, depicted kneeling on a ledge in front of a double niche surmounted by a scrolled pediment on Corinthian columns. The south arcade consists of four bays with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches; three bays are filled with a ‘Gothick’ screen dividing the nave and aisle. The roof is continuous over the nave and chancel, with an 18th-century arch-braced collar system incorporating king posts; wall posts are supported on identical corbel heads. A wide, elliptical chancel arch is flanked by a Gothick screen, likely dating to the late 18th century. A west gallery and organ loft mask the western bay of the arcade. An octagonal font with quatrefoils is also present. Fragments of medieval glass are found in the north and south windows. A good 14th-century reclining figure monument is located on the north side of the nave. A brass chandelier with 25 branches in three tiers, probably from the early 18th century and reportedly of Russian origin, is suspended in the nave.