Church Of St Mary Margaret

Church of St Margaret, Halstead

This is a Victorian Gothic Revival church built in 1880–1 to the design of William Milford Teulon, the younger brother of the more famous architect Samuel Sanders Teulon. The building was consecrated on 3 March 1881 on a new site. An enlargement, possibly including a vestry, was carried out in 1897 by J P St Aubyn and Wadling. A north extension providing a meeting room and related facilities was added in 1992.

The church is constructed of knapped flint with red brick and limestone dressings, and has clay tile roofs. The plan consists of a nave, lower chancel, north and south aisles, a south porch, a north organ chamber and vestry, and a three-bay room to the north of the north aisle.

The principal façade faces south and is dominated by a large catslide roof covering both the nave and south aisle. The aisle wall is low and features three small single-light windows and a two-light window under its own gable towards the east end. The chancel has similar two-light windows to its south wall and a three-light Geometrical window in the east wall. A large one-light bellcote straddles the west gable of the nave. There is no clerestory. The south porch is timber-framed on a flint-faced plinth. The 1992 north extension is expressed under three transverse gables and harmonises reasonably well with the Victorian building, though its mullion-and-transom window treatment is stylistically incongruous with the original design.

Inside, the walls are plastered and whitened. Either side of the nave is a three-bay arcade with round stone piers, moulded capitals and bases, and deeply moulded brick arches. The chancel arch is treated similarly. The nave roof is relatively slender, with arch-braces to the main trusses. The chancel roof is six-sided with cusping to its single main truss.

The church retains an extensive collection of late 19th-century fixtures. The most distinctive feature is the pewing, which has shaped ends forming an unusual variant of the inverted Y type commonly used as economical seating in Victorian churches. At the east end is a five-bay reredos with arched panels, flanked by dados with blind tracery panels. The organ case, probably designed by Teulon, has decorated pipes and a canted front. The font is octagonal with quatrefoils on the bowl panels; though made in 1849, it came from the old church. The chancel contains patterned encaustic tiles. Several important stained glass windows survive: Kempe designed work in the chancel south wall (1899), Morris and Company work in the north aisle (1909), and Powell's east window (1867), designed by Enrico Casolani and moved from the old church. Medieval brasses commemorate William Burys (died 1444) and William Petley (died 1528) and his wife. A white marble monument to James Ashe (died 1733), signed by the sculptor Jonathan Barker, is reported to be his only known work. The 1992 extension contains a large panel made in 1999–2000 composed of tiled scenes depicting local subjects and displaying the names of residents and community groups.

A timber memorial lychgate on a red-brick plinth, built in 2004, represents a modern work in a traditional form.

The church's main benefactor was T F Burnaby-Atkins of Halstead Place. The chancel is said to stand on the site of a former burial chapel built in 1854 by J P Atkins of Halstead Place. William Milford Teulon (1823–1900) was elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860.