Church of St Margaret

This is an Anglican parish church, originally built in the late 11th century. It has undergone alterations and additions in the 14th, 17th, and mid-18th centuries, and was restored between 1874 and 1876 by William Butterfield.

The church is constructed from dressed limestone, incorporating some flint, and has a stone-slate roof with coped verges and cross finials. The building is oriented east to west and includes a nave, chancel, an early 17th-century north porch, and a late 19th-century north vestry.

The two-story north porch features diagonal buttresses, a 19th-century double-chamfered pointed archway, and a pair of 19th-century cusped ogee lancet windows with louvres in the first floor. A datestone inscribed “1623” and a partly illegible churchwarden’s name are located in the gable apex. The nave has a pair of restored cusped ogee lancet windows to the left of the porch. The vestry, attached to the north side of the chancel, has a chamfered doorway and a trefoiled lancet window on its north wall. The east end of the chancel is distinguished by pilaster buttresses and three 19th-century chamfered round-headed windows. The south side has two 19th-century round-arched windows to the chancel, while the nave features a projecting 19th-century stone stack with a cylindrical ashlar top and a window with two cusped ogee lancets and a quatrefoil. To the west, a blocked 11th-century doorway, protected by a 19th-century framework, displays a tympanum with zoomorphic carving, attached shafts and capitals. The west end of the nave has a probably 14th-century chamfered, trefoiled window, and two 19th-century trefoiled ogee-headed lancets above.

Inside, the porch contains a fixed stone bench, and a chamfered Tudor-arched doorway with a 19th-century planked door and ornamental strap hinges leads into the church. The nave walls are plastered with exposed dressings, and the ceiling is a plastered, shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling with two moulded tie-beams, one dated 1740. Polychrome tiles and cast-iron heating grilles are set into the floor. A blocked round-arched doorway is found in the south wall. The chancel arch is supported by 11th-century carved corbels and incorporates a wooden arch-braced beam with pierced quatrefoils, designed by Butterfield. The chancel has a two-bay plaster wagon roof, and a chamfered doorway in the south wall leads to the vestry.

Fittings include a limestone reredos with Anglo-Saxon interlaced carving behind the altar. Stained glass in the east windows, commemorating Elizabeth Lady Heytesbury (died 1874), is by Alexander Gibbs. A brass on the south wall commemorates John Morgan and his wife (dated 1592). A worn 14th-century funerary slab is set into the floor at the extreme west end. The octagonal marble font on a stone octagonal plinth and the organ are 19th-century additions. The pews, pulpit, and communion rail also date from the 1870s. A black and white marble tablet by Harris of Bath, commemorating Brouncker-Thring (buried 1787) and his family, is located at the west end.