Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

This parish church originated in the 13th century but received a 15th-century tower. It underwent general restoration in 1855, with the chancel restored separately in 1880.

The church is built of very large coursed and squared limestone in the nave and chancel, with an ashlar tower. The north side of the nave and upper part of the east end are random rubble. The roof is stone slate. The plan consists of a nave without aisles, a chancel, a west tower, and a north porch.

The north porch features a moulded and pointed arched doorway with carved head labels to the hoodmould and a 19th-century plank door. The porch itself has a moulded 4-centred archway set within a parapet gable with diagonal corner buttresses. Small chamfered square-headed side windows sit above 19th-century restored internal stone seats, and the porch roof is a 19th-century replacement with cusped rafter collars.

The nave contains two plain chamfered Early English lancets to the left of the porch. Three lancets appear on the south nave wall, matching those on the north, set above a deep plinth. Three 18th-century wall memorials are mounted between the windows. A square stair-turret to the tower projects flush with the nave wall, featuring a shouldered-arched doorway and stone steps, with a raking coped top.

The chancel has a parapet east end gable with an Early English triplet east window. Two chancel windows occupy the north and south walls, with the eastern window being a single Early English lancet. A pointed arched priest's doorway with a plank door sits centrally on the south wall, flanked to the left by a 2-light window with quatrefoil tracery head in a square opening, and to the right by a small ogee-headed lancet in the north chancel wall.

The three-stage tower has diagonal offset buttresses and heavy plinth moulding interrupted by a pointed-arched west doorway. A 19th-century restored 2-light west window occupies the lower stage, with small chamfered square-headed openings on the north and south sides of the middle stage. The belfry features 2-light openings with rectilinear tracery and stone slate louvres. The buttresses at belfry level are clasping, with the east pair terminating above the nave roof with carved corbels. A string course runs above, punctuated by a single remaining carved animal gargoyle on the east and west tower faces. The tower is crowned with a crenellated parapet.

The interior has been scraped and partially replastered during 19th-century restorations. The nave contains a continuous rounded string course at sill level and a timber ribbed barrel roof with a brattished wall-plate. A round-headed tower arch features a 19th-century timber vestry screen below and the Royal Arms of George III mounted above. A blocked square-headed doorway to the left of the tower arch once provided internal access to the tower stairs.

The chancel arch is wide and pointed, with a chamfered archivolt supported on plain corbels with recessed undersides. The chancel floor was raised in the 19th century with a step at the arch and before the altar. The chancel roof is a timber panelled barrel type.

The chancel contains a restored shouldered-arched piscina in the south wall. A plain black marble memorial above the priest's door is inscribed to William Mathews, died 1720, and to his wife Mary. The nave houses 19th-century box pews and an octagonal stone 19th-century pulpit with an arcaded top and base. An early 14th-century stone octagonal font features round-headed panelling to the bowl and heavy mouldings below, set upon a panelled pedestal.

Some 19th-century stained glass remains in the nave. The east chancel triplet was glazed by Sir Ninian Comper in 1920.

The tower dominates the surrounding flat landscape.