Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

This is an Anglican church in Rottingdean with a Norman nave, tower and chancel dating from around 1200. The south aisle was added in 1856 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who also undertook a comprehensive restoration of the church at that time. Choir and clergy vestries were added in 1973-4 by Denman and Son. The building is constructed of random flint with stone dressings and has a tiled roof; the 19th-century work to the chancel, south aisle and west end is marked by a tighter use of flint.

The east end features three lancet windows of equal height dating from 1856, with a common hoodmould and a blank quatrefoil above. The south wall of the chancel has one pointed-arched entrance with an elaborately moulded architrave and hoodmould of 19th-century date; one plain lancet to the right of the entrance; and one lower lancet to the left with a trefoiled head, probably dating from the 14th century. A 17th-century stone bracket survives between this window and the entrance. The north wall of the chancel has one plain lancet.

The tower comprises three stages flanked by angle buttresses to north and south. It has a plain lancet window, two narrow bell openings above, and one narrow opening each to east and west, with a pyramidal roof.

The south aisle has paired trefoiled lancets with common hoodmoulds to its east and south sides, and a single trefoiled lancet to the west dating from the 14th century and reset by Scott. The roof is of lead and leans against the main structure. The north side of the nave displays, from the tower westwards, two pairs of lancets, then a single lancet, then another pair. Between the second pair and the single lancet is a low blocked opening with decayed dressed stonework, possibly derived from an earlier Saxon church.

The west end has a pointed-arched entrance with hollow- and wave-moulds and a hoodmould with head-stops depicting St Margaret of Antioch and St Richard of Chichester. The west door features elaborate Gothic Revival decoration to its hinges. The west end is flanked by two massive buttresses with one offset, dating from the late 14th century, and an additional angle buttress to the south of early 19th-century date. A cross crowns the gable apex. The choir and clergy vestries form a two-storey structure, square in plan, with the principal part under a hipped roof and the upper part set back.

Two memorial stones set into the west end of the south aisle commemorate Sir Edward Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana, who are buried there.

Interior

The interior has the unusual feature of a raised floor level: the floor rises by three steps from the nave to the crossing under the tower, and then by a further three steps to the chancel. Scott plastered the interior and reroofed the nave. Earlier features of interest include the priest's doorway in the chancel with 13th-century mouldings; the crown post roof to the chancel with arched braces and cambered tie beams, possibly contemporary with the chancel; and the chancel arch and the arch to the crossing, both of which are triple-chamfered. The nave arcade to the south comprises three bays with restored columns having Early English capitals and an inner order to the pointed arch.

A gallery at the west end has a balustrade possibly of 18th-century date. A Norman font is preserved at the west end of the south aisle alongside a font of similar design dating from 1910. Behind the pulpit is a memorial tablet surmounted by a bust of Thomas Redman Hooker. A polished Purbeck marble slab tomb of Thomas Pelling, dated 1732, is located in the chancel.

The church contains notable stained glass by Morris and Company: the east window dates from 1893; lancets either side of the chancel depicting the Virgin Mary and St Margaret date from 1894; lancets either side of the crossing are from 1897; the Ridsdale window in the north side of the nave dates from 1902; and the Rowden window in the north side of the nave dates from 1919. All designs are by Burne-Jones except for the figures of Christ bearing the Cross and St George and the Dragon in the Rowden window, which are by JH Dearle. A chancel window in memory of Sir Wentworth Dilke dates from 1922 and is by Townshend.