Church Of St Margaret Of Antioch

The Church of St. Margaret of Antioch is an Anglican parish church dating back to the 13th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 14th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It was restored in 1856 by T.H. Wyatt. The church is constructed of limestone ashlar and dressed stones, with a tiled roof covered with stone slates to the eaves. The building is cruciform, incorporating a north aisle, a south porch, a north-east vestry, and a broach spire.

The gabled rubble stone south porch features a double-chamfered pointed doorway and coped verges. The nave has two 14th-century windows with ogee cusping. The south transept is distinguished by late 13th-century diagonal buttresses and a three-light pointed window of three lancet lights to the south, along with a single 14th-century window to the east. The chancel incorporates a pointed priest's door, three 19th-century lancets to the south side, a corbel table with carved animals and faces, and a 3-light pointed east window with a hoodmould featuring carved head terminals. A vestry, dating to 1844, has cusped lancets and a shouldered, chamfered doorway. A polygonal stair turret, built in 1856, is situated in the angle between the chancel and the north transept, displaying cusped lancets and a trefoil. The north aisle, added in 1856, contains four geometrically-styled windows. A reset west doorway dating from around 1200 features a round arch with roll moulding on cushion capitals. The west window is a 19th-century four-light geometric-style design with a hoodmould and carved head terminals.

The crossing tower, featuring two-light pointed windows to the bellstage, has a parapet and a broach spire, largely rebuilt around 1770 with string courses and moulded capping. Inside, a Perpendicular inner door is set within a hollow-chamfered niche with a hoodmould featuring busts. The nave has a five-bay roof with braced collar trusses supported by foliated corbels, with flagstone floors. The four-bay north aisle features double-chamfered pointed arches on alternate cylindrical and octagonal piers, under a collar-rafter roof. The crossing is vaulted with a quadripartite rib vault and triple-chamfered arches on square, chamfered piers. The transepts have two-bay braced collar truss roofs, and the south transept includes an ogee piscina. The chancel has a collar-rafter roof, and the north wall contains three 13th-century lancets, now within the vestry, two of which have roll-moulded sills. A plain, hollow-chamfered piscina is located on the south wall. A 13th-century font bowl has been reset on a 19th-century base and is situated within the nave. A good 17th-century carved wooden pulpit is positioned at the crossing. Wall tablets include a white marble in the chancel dedicated to Thomas Harris, who died in 1825, and a large limestone and slate tablet on the south wall of the nave, commemorating members of the Jesse family from 1656 to 1702. Stained glass includes a substantial east window from 1843, two windows by Heaton and Butler from the 1860s depicting Ellen Tower and Mary King respectively, and good unsigned glass from 1891 depicting Rev. Charles Tower.