Church of St. Margaret

TG 50 SW 8/37

HOPTON-ON-SEA LOWESTOFT ROAD (west side) Church of St. Margaret

(Formerly listed in Herringfleet CP)

27.11.54

II*

Parish church. 1866-67 by S.S. Teulon. Quaternary flint and chert with Lincolnshire Limestone and Bath Stone dressings. Interior faced with gault and red brick. Plain tiled roofs, red and black. Nave, central tower, transeptal protuberance and chancel. Early English style. Solid masses arranged in a rough symmetry. Two lancets in west wall separated by a stepped buttress lead up to sexfoiled roundel. Small roof light above. Three north nave windows and two to south, each of two-light plate tracery type. Those to north have wide brick relieving arches. Gabled south porch with moulded entrance arch and low side buttresses. Arcade of windows to east and west sides. Massive square crossing tower rises from lean-to transepts, the north and south sides pierced by three lancets. Broaches below belfry convert tower to octagonal plan. Paired belfry window lancets and, to alternate facets, splayed sphercial triangles. Circular stair turret rises up south-east corner and terminates in high conical roof. Transepts have three lancets to main fronts although one is now blocked to north. The north transept also has a west door below a roundel, and the south a vestry against its east gable. Chancel lit through paired lancets and, further east, a single lancet. Three-light east window of freely interpreted Geometric design.

Interior. Appearance of decorative austerity. Polychromatic effect achieved by eccentric use of red brick round arches and window embrasures. Scissor braced nave roof with prominent ashlaring. Hexagonal lobed font with central drum and orbiting marble shafts. Rere arches to windows are exaggerated. Crossing arches are taller to east and west, where responds die into wall. North and south arches die into walls without the assistance of responds. Timber arched barrel chancel roof. Stepped double sedilia and double piscina, oddly arranged one over the other. Chancel stained glass by William Morris and Company to designs by Sir Edmund Burne-Jones 1881. To the north Humility and Faith. To the south Hope and Charity. The east window is a Resurrection of 1901.

Listing NGR: TG5241500040