Church Of St Margaret

Church of St Margaret

An Anglican parish church on St Margaret's Road, dating from the 13th century onwards with little obvious 19th-century work. The building is constructed of ham stone rubble with some cut and squared ashlar dressings. The chancel is roofed with stone slates and features a coped east gable, while the nave is covered with plain clay tiles and has stepped coped gables with finials behind plain parapets.

The church follows a two-cell plan with a three-bay chancel, four-bay nave, a north tower positioned at the junction of the nave and chancel, a south porch, and a 20th-century vestry at the west end.

The chancel is predominantly 13th century in date. It has corner and bay buttresses with offsets and a corbel table eaves course. The east window is a 19th-century four-centred arched five-light window with reticulated tracery. The north and south sides contain two-light windows of the later 13th century with traceried designs and plain stopped labels. A pointed arched doorway with an arched label under a flat stone hood is located on the west bay of the south side. The north wall displays various 17th- and 18th-century memorial slabs.

The nave is similar in character to the chancel but features low parapets. On the north side is a single three-light 15th-century window in a hollowed recess, which cuts across a former buttress. A blocked pointed arched doorway stands opposite the south porch. The west window is a five-light design matching the south side windows. On the south side, the east bay contains a large 15th-century three-light window in a hollowed recess with a square-stop label, followed by a smaller 14th-century three-light window under a headstop label, then the south porch, and a tall slim two-light flat-headed traceried window under a square label, probably of the 14th century.

The south porch is gabled with side buttresses. It contains a moulded pointed 14th-century arch with a square-stop label. Inside the porch is a ribbed pointed vault of two bays with side shafts and bosses, representing 14th-century work but re-roofed in 1534. A plain inner doorway features a pointed arched niche above.

The 20th-century west vestry, possibly designed by Sir Ninian Comper (who also designed the churchyard cross), has a flat roof behind an angled coped parapet, plain leaded windows, and a door on the south side.

The tower dates from the 13th century, with the top stage and turret stair added in 1516–17. It rises in three stages. The lowest stage features corner buttresses to the north face and an octagonal stair turret on this side. A triangular-arched doorway in the east wall stands under a square label, with a slim trefoil-arched light over it and also on the west face. A roll string mould separates the stages, followed by pairs of slim lancet windows to the east and west faces, with a plain rectangular window below on the west side. The third stage has groups of three lancets to match, over a double string. A plain parapet with gargoyles sits above. A door with steps up is located on the north-west angle of the stair turret.

Interior

The chancel interior is predominantly 13th century in character but features an early 20th-century king-post roof. The side windows have fine semi-circular rere-arches with attached shafts and continuous cill strings. A good 13th-century double piscina is present. The wide chancel arch is of the early 14th century, with possibly contemporary low stone walls and a small stoup on the nave north side.

The nave has a 19th-century arch-braced roof. Windows lack rere-arches except for that part hidden behind the pulpit and obscured by the tower. A continuous cill string runs throughout.

Fittings and Memorials

The church contains a 17th-century altar table and a 17th-century octagonal panelled timber pulpit with a matching backboard and tester. A 15th-century octagonal font features a panelled bowl and underbowl with a plain shaft. Eighteenth-century commandment boards are painted on canvas mounted on wood. Medieval encaustic floor tiles survive in the step to the sanctuary. A number of bench ends, made in 1511–12, are present; three feature hinged stools with stays, possibly for servants. The tower has a 16th-century timber panel roof with moulded beams.

Several brasses are set into the chancel floor, including one to John Heth, a priest who died in 1464, and others from the 17th century. A ham and Keinton stone memorial in the north wall of the sanctuary features Corinthian columns and full entablature with a cartouche of arms to Thomas Napper, who died in 1692. A black and white marble monument to John Napper, who died in 1778, is located on the south chancel wall. An unusual ham stone plaque with a pediment in the blocked north nave doorway commemorates John Priddle, who died in 1773.

The Napper family, who occupied the nearby Parsonage (now Tintinhull Court) from 1546 and later Tintinhull House until the end of the 18th century, are notably commemorated. The east window contains stained glass by F.C. Eden.