Church Of St Margaret

The Church of St Margaret is probably late 12th or early 13th century in origin, and the ghost of the original double-square nave and narrow north aisle are visible on the plan. The northwest tower was added in the late 14th century. The nave arcades, west end of the nave and north aisle were rebuilt in the early 15th century. The south aisle was widened and the south chapel added in the late 15th century. The north chapel was added or rebuilt in the early 16th century. There was refurnishing in the 18th century. The tower was largely rebuilt around 1820, and the northwest corner was cut back to allow the street to be widened. The church was restored in 1872 and the north vestry added in 1882. It was reordered in 1985-8 by Michael Reardon Associates, who reversed the orientation of the south aisle and converted most of the rest to a café.

Materials

The church is built of flint rubble with stone dressings. The roofs are tiled and leaded.

Plan

Originally a fully aisled rectangle with structurally undivided nave and chancel, narrow north aisle and slightly wider north chapel, and a very wide south aisle and south chapel. There is a northwest tower porch and north vestry. The orientation was reversed at the conversion, and the west end of the south aisle is now the chancel, with the rest of the south aisle serving as the nave. The chancel has been retained as a baptistery chapel. The nave and north aisle are a café, with kitchen and offices in the former north chapel. The former vestry has been converted into toilets.

Exterior

A square and boxy structure, the church is on a very cramped site. The north aisle has an embattled parapet, but there is no clerestory. The roofs are of different heights with the south aisle higher than the rest. The 14th-century west tower porch is of three stages with an embattled parapet and a plain, square cupola of 1820, restored in 1988. The lowest stage forms the porch and has an open entrance arch. The inner doorway is also 14th century and has headstops. Both the tower and aisles have offset buttresses with prominent stone quoining. The windows are largely Perpendicular in style with vertical tracery, and were mostly restored in the 19th century. Those in the south aisle, which have depressed heads, are early 16th century; the north chapel windows are also early 16th century. An early 16th-century south door with a depressed head and square frame sits in a shallow projection between the buttresses, and there is a 15th-century west door.

Interior

The interior is plastered and painted, with a fine mid 15th-century hammerbeam roof in the south aisle and south chapel. The church was subdivided in the 1985-8 reordering and is now difficult to read in its entirety. The nave and chancel chapel arcades of five bays are continuous, but the two eastern bays for the chancel chapels spring from a higher level, and the bay spacing is different on each side, indicating that they were built in phases around an existing structure. The piers are octagonal and have moulded capitals. The arches of the north arcade are no longer visible from the nave floor; those of the south arcade are chamfered. There is no chancel arch.

The 1980s reordering created a café and service facilities in the nave, north aisle and north chapel. There is an inserted floor at the level of the nave arcade piers in the nave and north aisle on heavy joists and beams. This has a timber and glazed screen to the south aisle at upper level. The north chapel has been enclosed to form a kitchen and there are further partitions in this area. Timber and glazed screens in the position of a chancel screen, and in the western part of the south arcade, enclose the south aisle, south chapel and the former chancel as a liturgical space. The orientation has been reversed and the chancel is now at the west end of the south aisle, with a low sanctuary platform. The former chancel is now a baptistery at the liturgical southwest end of this space and has a large roof light inserted into the ceiling.

Principal Fixtures

The church was largely refurnished in the 19th century, and most of these furnishings, including pews, screens and pulpit, were subsequently removed in the late 20th-century reordering. The font is late 15th century, polygonal with enriched quatrefoils on the bowl. The base, with black marble inserts, black marble slab across the top, and the metal cover, are from 1985-8. The metal altar rails and paschal candlestick match the font cover. The 19th-century reredos survives at the east end of the baptistery space, and two early 20th-century screens in a very late Arts and Crafts Gothic style, one with a First World War memorial inscription, stand in the arcades on the north and south sides of the baptistery. Some 19th- and 20th-century glass survives.

The medieval roofs are of particular note. In the south aisle and chapel, a mid 15th-century hammerbeam roof, an unusual type for Middlesex. The late 15th-century chancel roof has moulded tie beams and short king posts, with 18th-century boarding and coving. A 20th-century roof light reuses older materials. The nave roof is similar to that in the chancel.

In the former chancel hang two brass chandeliers dated 1695 and 1735. Paintings of Moses and Aaron, said to be from a reredos of 1771, hang on the east (liturgical west) wall of the new nave.

A few wall tablets survive, along with a very fine, large marble and alabaster monument to Leonora Bennett, who died in 1638. A reclining figure lies below a Doric entablature with a broken pediment. The high chest has a central panel of bones in a grilled recess. The monument is attributed to John and Matthias Christmas.

History

St Margaret's was the chapel of St John the Baptist, Hillingdon until the early 19th century. A chapel is first recorded there in the mid 13th century, but it is likely that it was already there in the late 12th or early 13th century. The earliest surviving fabric is the 14th-century tower, but irregularities in the plan suggest that the church was rebuilt around an existing structure in the 15th and early 16th centuries. By the early 15th century, it comprised at least a nave, chancel, north aisle and the northwest tower, although it may also have had a south aisle. The guild of St Mary and St Margaret was founded in 1448. It provided a chaplain, and a further chantry was endowed in 1459 for Walter Shiryngton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. It was probably in connection with one or both of these chantries that the south aisle and south chapel were built or rebuilt, although Shiryngton's chapel is also associated with the north chapel. There was further work in the early 16th century when the north chapel was added or rebuilt and the south aisle partly refenestrated. The nave and chancel ceiling were boarded and painted in the 18th century, galleries were installed and the Moses and Aaron paintings were part of a reredos installed in 1771. There was work on the tower in the early 19th century including the rebuilding of the cupola in 1820. The church was restored in 1872 to designs by Sir George Gilbert Scott and the north vestry was added in 1882. The church was extensively reordered in 1985-8.