Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

An Anglican parish church built in 1846 by architect James Thomson for Joseph Neeld of Grittleton. The building is constructed of squared ashlar blocks with stone slate roofs, coped gables and cross finials. A large ashlar bellcote sits over the chancel arch. The church comprises a nave, shorter aisles, a south porch, north transept and chancel.

The architectural style is generally Decorated Gothic with personal variations. A moulded plinth runs around the entire building, with diagonal buttresses at the angles except at the nave's west end, which features clasping buttresses. The windows are predominantly pointed, set deep with hoodmoulds and carved stops. The west end has a large 5-light window with 2-light windows flanking it, whilst the aisles have 3-light east windows.

The south aisle contains flat-headed Perpendicular style 2-light windows on each side of a projecting gabled porch with an ornate small statue niche above a pointed-arched doorway. The north aisle has a central projecting transept with an ashlar semi-circular apse to the north and stone gablets at the eaves either side, over curved triangular lights. The long chancel has 2 lancets on each side, with those to the south having tiny quatrefoil lights above. A roundel east window sits high in the plain wall. The plinth incorporates tomb slabs of two 17th-century vicars, P. Kingsman and R. Latymer.

The remarkable bell-turret over the chancel arch is a near copy of the 14th-century original, reused on the school at Sevington. It is diagonally set as a square with pointed arches, a row of five shafts at the angles and a short stone spire with Evangelist symbols over the angles.

The interior is constructed of ashlar with open wagon roofs featuring carved bosses and ribs rising from small carved corbels. The unusual 3-bay arcades have circular piers with 2-chamfered round arches and no capital between them, only a stylised leaf motif—a feature Thomson copied from the south aisle of the original church. The north arcade is infilled with round-arched arcading on an ashlar base to screen the north aisle, which was intended as the Neeld family chapel. The infill consists of 3 arches on each side and 2 arches to the centre. An ovolo-moulded course runs over the arcades in the nave, with some painted decoration to the roof.

At the west end, blank north and south walls have six early 18th-century style monuments to the Browning family affixed to them, dated 1751 to 1791. The west window contains an apocalyptically coloured Crucifixion window by T. Wilmshurst, with further Wilmshurst glass in the end windows of the aisles.

The north aisle is more elaborately treated, with painted decoration to the roof and an encaustic-tiled floor. In the centre of the north wall, a projecting stone organ-loft is corbelled out on a short circular column to a half-hexagonal splay ornamented with carved arms and painted decoration. Above this is blank Gothic arcading with decorative pierced timber screens either side of a carved and painted organ case. Pointed-arched doorways flank the organ-loft, one giving access to the vestry and one to the loft. The vestry has an apse to the north of uncertain function. A family pew at the east end faces south, with a large Gothic memorial to Joseph Neeld (died 1856) behind it. At the west end, on the north wall, similar marble and alabaster Gothic memorials to Sir John Neeld Bt (died 1891) and Sir Algernon Neeld Bt (died 1900) are positioned.

The south aisle contains west end memorials to J. Browning (died 1706) and J. Browning (died 1824), the latter signed by T. King. An east end plaque commemorates E. Chiver (died 1653). A stone octagonal font and stone almsbox on a Gothic column occupy the aisle. In the nave, a former lectern, now serving as a pulpit, has pierced stone balustrading on three sides. The original pulpit is in Grittleton Church.

The chancel arch features 2-chamfered moulding with a pierced stone rail, the gate itself being of ashlar. The chancel has painted decoration to the roof and window surrounds and is divided into an unfurnished choir with a fine encaustic tile floor, and an elaborate sanctuary dramatically lit by the single high-set east roundel. Two marble steps lead to the sanctuary, which has an encaustic tile floor. An aumbry and piscina with painted decoration are present. The east wall features an ornate Gothic reredos of 7 canopied niches, the broader centre niche having an ogee half-dome. Gothic blank arcading runs below and a lettered frieze above. The niches contain five statues by E.H. Baily after originals by B. Thorwaldsen—Christ in the centre and the Evangelists on each side. The outer niches have the Commandments painted on them. The blank arcading has a centre panel with the Lord's Prayer. Above the reredos, the entire wall is covered in painted decoration, possibly on canvas.

There is said to be a vaulted crypt beneath the north aisle.

Thomson described his work as restoration, but there are no surviving old features in the building. The bellcote, arcades, chancel arch and possibly the Perpendicular detailing of the south aisle windows are all copied designs. The building is significant as a small-scale, highly elaborate estate church from the pre-archaeological phase of the Gothic Revival, notable particularly for the use of the north aisle as a family pew, the theatrical deployment of light and colour in the chancel, and the spectacular colouring of T. Wilmshurst's west window.