Church Of St Alphege With St Margaret

CHURCH OF ST ALPHEGE WITH ST MARGARET

This is a significant medieval parish church in Canterbury, with origins in the late 12th or early 13th century. The northwest tower, north chapel, chancel and nave all date from this period. Some 14th-century windows were added, and the nave and chancel arcade was rebuilt around 1468. The church underwent extensive restoration between 1882 and 1889 to designs by architects Carpenter and Ingelow, when the tower and east wall were partially rebuilt. The building became redundant and was stripped of its fittings around 1980.

The church is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings and has tiled roofs, with the tower partly tile hung. The plan comprises a nave and chancel with a full north aisle and north chancel chapel, a northwest tower, and a southwest vestry.

EXTERIOR

The three-stage west tower was partially rebuilt in the 19th century. Its upper part is tile hung with a tiled pyramidal cap. The tower serves as the porch. The northwest door dates from the 15th century and has a pointed head within a square frame with carved spandrels; it partially blocks a late 12th or early 13th-century lancet. The outer doors are plain and possibly 15th-century. The inner doorway is late 15th or early 16th-century with tiny mouldings on attached shafts, and the contemporary inner door has two panelled leaves with linenfold and shields. The west end of the nave has a three-light window with restored Decorated style tracery, below which sits a low 19th-century vestry. The east walls of the aisle and chancel front directly onto the street. Both were rebuilt in the 19th century with Perpendicular style windows and a buttress between them. The north wall of the chancel chapel has two 14th-century windows with a 13th-century lancet between them. The north wall of the aisle, distinguished from the chancel chapel by a moulded plinth with simple flint flushwork, has three late 15th-century windows of three cusped lights in square heads. The south side has restored 14th-century windows of two lights in square heads, a former priest's door, and a 13th-century lancet towards the west end.

INTERIOR

The interior was stripped of many furnishings when the church became redundant. A gallery was inserted under the west tower, and the southwest vestry was converted to toilets and kitchen. There is no chancel arch, and the nave and chancel are roofed as one with a five-bay, 15th-century crown post roof. The aisle and chapel are roofed together with a 15th-century common rafter roof with tie beams. A plain, chamfered tower arch leads through.

The five-bay arcade is continuous throughout with octagonal piers supporting four-centred, hollow-chamfered arches with moulded capitals. One pier has an integral image niche with a plaque commemorating Thomas Prude, who died in 1468, with the inscription 'per quem fit ista columpna' (who built this pier), which likely provides a building date for the entire arcade. A very elaborate 15th-century door to the former rood loft features an ogee hood mould with head stops and cuts through a former window of the 12th or early 13th-century. The profile of the former rood loft remains visible in the plaster on the south wall. The remains of a former triple lancet window are visible in the chancel east wall.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES

The church retains a 15th or early 16th-century polygonal font with shields and roses on the bowl and a panelled stem. The font cover, probably 17th-century, has an ogee shape with an elaborate contemporary bracket for lifting. Some medieval glass fragments have been reset, including a Continental grisaille panel depicting the crucifixion, and the church also contains good 19th-century glass. The building retains a good collection of monuments, including a brass for the priest Robert Gosbourne, who died in 1523, and wall tablets dating from the 17th to 19th centuries. There are also some hatchments.

HISTORY

The earliest visible fabric dates from the 12th or early 13th century, though a church may have existed on the site before this date. By the early 13th century, the remains of lancet windows in the north wall of the aisle and chapel, and in the east wall of the chancel, indicate that the church had a north aisle and north chapel by that time. The tower also dates from the late 12th or early 13th century. It was refenestrated in the 14th century, and in the mid-15th century it was greatly remodelled with the construction of the arcade and roofs. It is likely that the arches between the chapel and aisle, and between the chancel and nave, were removed at this time.

The church was briefly used by the Huguenot congregation in the late 16th century before they moved to the crypt of the cathedral, where the French protestant church remains today. Extensive restoration took place between 1882 and 1889 to designs by Richard Carpenter and Benjamin Ingelow, including the rebuilding of much of the east wall and the west wall of the tower. The church became redundant in the 1970s. It was used for a time by the Canterbury Environment Centre and in 2007 was purchased by the King's School.