Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

A parish church of mixed date, with surviving 14th-century fragments but substantially rebuilt in the 15th century, and comprehensively restored in 1872. The church stands on the east side of The Street in Wattisfield.

The exterior is built of random flint with freestone dressings, though the south side is more carefully coursed. The roofing comprises old plain tiles to the nave and porch roofs, with slates and remains of decorated ridge tiles to the chancel. The plan consists of a nave, chancel, north and south porches, and a west tower.

The nave and chancel walls are buttressed with stepped buttresses faced in freestone and panels of black knapped flint to the north and south; the east end of the chancel is strengthened by diagonal buttresses. The windows are in Perpendicular style with traceried heads. The north side of the nave has two 3-light and one 2-light windows; the south side has one 2-light and one 3-light, all partly restored. The chancel has two similar 2-light windows to north and south, and a 3-light east window with a central embattled transome filled with six stained glass panels. This east window was inserted in 1864 as a memorial to the Reverend William Hepworth (1759–1841), curate of Wattisfield for 48 years. A pointed priest's door with ogee-moulded continuous arch opens to the north.

The north porch is a 14th-century timber structure featuring an entrance arch with ovolo-moulding, rebated and pintle-hinged for the door. The substantial rafter roof retains its original form with later bracing. Side walls carry an upper row of closely-set chamfered Jacobean mullions, originally forming an open balustrade but now boarded externally. Above the north door is a cusped timber arch, with the door itself set in a 14th-century pointed continuous arch with quarter-round mouldings and drip-mould.

The south porch, now used as a vestry, dates to the 15th century and is faced in black knapped flint mixed with small rubble stone blocks. Diagonal buttresses display remains of flushwork panels, including a crowned MR monogram and a wheel. The entrance arch has flushwork panels to either side. The top of the porch walls and gable were rebuilt in Tudor red brick; the apex bears a much-damaged shield in brickwork carrying the arms of de la Pole, together with a sundial and an ornate cross. Similar crosses crown the east end and the position above the chancel arch.

The west tower is small and unbuttressed, divided into three stages by string courses. The base displays flushwork with a trefoil arcade. The top stage has a 2-light traceried window on each face, while the two lower stages have different 2-light windows on the west side. The south face carries two tiny slit windows and a quatrefoil for the internal stair. The parapet is crenellated and plain.

The interior was extensively restored in 1872. The chancel has a renewed roof and contains a large 15th-century rectangular piscina in the south wall, set in an ogee-moulded surround with a 19th-century cusped ogee arch above. Various wall memorials are present, and a mid-19th-century black ledger slab set in the floor commemorates the Reverend William Hepworth, his wife, and his son. A 15th-century chancel arch separates the chancel from the nave. The complete rood stairs survive in the south wall of the nave.

The furnishings include a fine octagonal Perpendicular font with panelled tracery to each face of the wide stem and blank shields on the bowl faces, paired with an ornate octagonal Jacobean font cover whose ribs are carved with scrolls and beaked bird or dragon heads, topped by a ball and spike finial. The nave retains a plain medieval rafter roof with scissor-bracing. Sections of the medieval chancel arch screen have been incorporated into the prayer desk and lectern. The tower arch dates to the early 14th century.