St Margaret's Church

St Margaret's Church, Topsham

St Margaret's Church stands on Fore Street, Topsham, on the west side overlooking the Exe estuary. The church has a surviving Perpendicular tower from the 15th century, but the majority of the structure was rebuilt in 1874-6 by architect Edward Ashworth at a cost of £8,550.

The building is constructed of random squared grey limestone with a red sandstone tower, and features diaper-patterned slate roofs. The plan is an unusually deep cruciform design with a four-bay nave, two-bay chancel, and notably the tower is attached to the west side of the south transept rather than the west end. The main porch is positioned east of the north transept.

The exterior displays Geometric Gothic styling of around 1300, with complex picturesque roofs of patterned slate. The street-facing east front shows a gabled chancel with a lower gabled chapel to its north, and a low lean-to chapel and porch further back on the south side. The tower itself is largely hidden from the street and only becomes visible from the churchyard to the south. It is low, without buttresses or clear division into stages, and features a three-light window above a door, a small square-headed bell opening with louvres, and an embattled parapet that was stepped up in the centre in 1887 to accommodate clock faces. To the east of the tower, the south transept gable displays an imposing five-light window with flowing Decorated tracery. The nave has lean-to aisles and a clerestory of small oculi with varied tracery including foiled, star-pattern and spheric triangle designs.

Internally, the chancel roof forms the chief decorative feature, consisting of a boarded wagon vault overlaid with a fine net of cusped diaper ribs arranged in rectangular panels. The nave has more conventional roofs with arch-braced collar trusses on small hammerbeams. The aisle roofs employ unorthodox Y-trusses. The nave arcades feature circular piers with moulded capitals and arches, transitioning to heavy plain square piers at the crossing with large leafy corbels on the responds. Similar corbels support the chancel arch. The western two bays of the nave were cleared and screened off in the 1970s for use as a social area. The north transept was screened off from the nave to serve as an entrance vestibule in 2007, as part of a phased reordering programme dating from 2003 by Oliver West and John Scott. The south transept features a row of four upper windows in its east wall similar to a clerestory. The north chancel chapel houses the organ loft and a vestry, while the small south chapel currently remains furnished as a chapel pending clearance. Geometric black and white stone floors mark the chancel steps, with encaustic tiling in the chancel itself. Much of the stone carving was executed by Harry Hems's Exeter workshop.

The principal fixtures include a stone reredos of five crocketed gables with red marble shafts and a stencilled brocade backdrop. The chancel furnishings are of Neo-Perpendicular oak design, carefully executed in 1935, with a similar pulpit likely of the same date. The Norman font has a circular bowl with large conical flutes and features a remarkable carving on one side of a standing beast or dragon holding an apple in its mouth. The brass spire-form font cover dates to 1880. In the north transept stands a wall clock made by Cuthbert Lee of London around 1760, featuring an octagonal face and Chinoiserie lacquered and gilded case. A Dutch brass chandelier with two tiers of eight branches was given around 1700. Fine carved and painted wooden Royal arms with Baroque mantling display the versions current between 1603-49, 1660-89 and 1702-7, and likely date to the late 17th century. The stained glass collection is of good quality: the east and west windows by F. Drake date from 1876-7, the south transept south window by Burlison & Grylls from 1907 (described by Pevsner as "one of their best in Devon"), and the north transept north window by Beer & Driffield from 1876. Two fine Greek Revival tablets of black and white marble by Sir Francis Chantrey occupy the south transept: one commemorates Lt. Col. George Duckworth (d. 1811) with a standing figure and an angel of Victory, and another honours Admiral Sir John Duckworth, Baronet (d. 1817) with a noble bust and a fine relief of a naval battle.

Topsham served as Exeter's port from Roman times and was a considerable settlement by around 700 AD, with a manse associated with the church living recorded by 937 AD. The church was re-consecrated in the mid-15th century, possibly around the time the tower was built. It was rebuilt after a fire in 1676 and again comprehensively in 1874-6. Edward Ashworth (1814-96), the architect responsible for the 1874-6 reconstruction, was articled to Robert Cornish of Exeter and later trained under the London architect Charles Fowler. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1842 and practised in Auckland until January 1844, before returning to England in 1846 to establish a reputation as a church architect in Exeter.