Church of St Margaret (The Marble Church)

Church of St Margaret, known as "The Marble Church"

A large church of Grade II* listing, consisting of a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, and an axial west porch beneath a massive tower and spire reaching over 60 metres in height. A small octagonal vestry occupies the angle between the chancel and the north aisle; otherwise the layout is symmetrical. The exterior walls are constructed from selected local limestone quarried in the hills south of Abergele. The general masonry is laid in snecked courses with a slightly picked finish and raised pointing, while featured masonry in the same stone is thin jointed with chisel drafted or finely carved details. The roofs are of slates trimmed to create a honeycomb pattern. The nave roof features 10 lucarnes on each side, staggered rather than opposite one another, to light the interior; similar lucarnes in the chancel roof serve as ventilators.

The nave comprises 5 bays and terminates at the east with a moulded coped gable and finial cross. At the two eastern angles of the nave are small spires, each with an octagonal lower stage and crocketting on the ribs above. The north and south aisles have span roofs that conceal the clerestory lights of the nave, and feature moulded copings to the east and west gables which blend with a parapet adorned with corner gargoyles. Buttresses with offsets, including paired angle buttresses at the east end, a plinth, and string courses at the base of the windows and parapet provide structural articulation. The aisle windows to north and south are of 2 lights, those to the west of the aisles of 3 lights, all with simple tracery; the tracery styles alternate in the aisle side windows. All label moulds terminate with foliage or heads, some of which may be portraits. The chancel, comprising 3 bays, is similar in character but with greater enrichment and 3-light side windows featuring more intricate tracery. The east window displays 5 lights with tracery based on the Star of David, the south aisle east window is of 3 lights, and rose windows appear to the east of the north aisle and to the west of the tower above the entrance.

The tower is divided into 4 stages by string courses. Diagonal buttresses with only slight offsets are surmounted by gargoyles. A blind-pierced parapet crowns the tower stage. Two-light belfry openings with louvres and tracery pierce each side. Above the west door is a circular window with tracery based on the Star of David, positioned beneath a crocketted canopy featuring a quatrefoil containing the Bodelwyddan arms. The heavily moulded west door arch is flanked by nook columns of Aberdeen granite.

The spire is slender and octagonal, lightly crocketted, and divided into 4 stages by bands of diagonal tracery. It displays a slight entasis. Two-light openings appear in the base stage on the cardinal sides with cinquefoil tracery and crocketted canopies; from the other sides, slender flying buttresses pass through corner spirelets to smaller spirelets terminating the tower angle buttresses. The design was modelled on the spire of King's Sutton in Northamptonshire. The vault of the Williams family lies externally at the north of the porch, with granite inscriptions attached to the porch wall.

The interior of St Margaret's has earned the church its popular name "The Marble Church" from the remarkable variety of marbles employed throughout. The common interior stone is Talacre, but the dominant marbles are the red Griotte of the main chancel piers, which harmonises with the mature colour of the oak roof, and the Belgian Red of the nave arcades, which by comparison appears somewhat insipid, perhaps intentionally so.

The church is entered through a plain west porch, which leads by a double archway to the nave. At the centre are paired columns in Anglesey marble. The church is paved in Sicilian marble. Within the porch, the foundation stone on the left bears its inscription on a brass plate within a recess.

The nave consists of 5 bays of arcading, tall and narrow, with a 10-bay oak roof. The arcades are supported by quatrefoil columns of Belgian Red marble with bulky foliage capitals carved by Henry Smith, which feature the rose, thistle, leek, shamrock and ivy. The roof principals rise above smaller Belgian Red marble shafts. Above the cornice at each side are 10 paired clerestory lights, separated by carved oak brackets that support the feet of the arch-braces of the roof trusses. The spandrels between the arch-braces and the principals are pierced with foliation. The wallplates, the bearings of the trusses over the brackets and the collars are all castellated. Light enters the apex of the roof through 10 small staggered lucarnes on each side. The aisle roofs comprise 10 bays with alternately braced and unbraced trusses and short green marble shafts at the principal positions, carried on limestone corbels.

The chancel roof features large bosses carved by Thomas Earp. Roof principals with arch-braces pierced with foliation span between Red Griotte columns whose colour is heightened by contrast with bands and inserts of black Kilkenny marble. The chancel is surrounded on three sides by wall canopies; those at the east form the reredos, featuring Languedoc marble shafts and cusped nodding ogee heads of Caen stone and alabaster, carved by Harmer. At the east, the canopies incorporate Povey marble inscribed with painted texts of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed.

The communion rails, choirstalls, pulpit (by Thomas Earp), lectern (1876, by T F Kendal of Warwick) and pews are all carved in oak. The font, dated 1862 and carved by Peter Hollins of Birmingham (who also carved Lord Willoughby de Broke's tomb at Compton Verney), is in Carrara marble and features the figures of two nieces of Lady Margaret, who died young. The altar, reredos and communion rails of the War Memorial Chapel in the south aisle are in oak, designed by W D Caröe around 1920. The pipe organ in the west gallery is by John Cowin of Liverpool. The bells are by the Whitechapel Foundry.

The middle windows of the chancel sides, dated around 1880, are thought to be by Ward and Hughes; the others, including the east window and the west gallery window, are by O'Connor, as are the two east windows of the aisles. Two windows at the west of the aisles (1881 and 1896) and one adjacent on the north side (1910) are family windows by Ward and Hughes.