Description

ASHBY DE LA ZOUCH

913/4/219 MAIN STREET
29-SEP-77 BLACKFORDBY
(West side)
PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARGARET OF ANTIOCH

GV II

Parish church of 1859 by H.I. Stevens

MATERIALS: Coursed, rock-faced sandstone, with graded slate roof.

PLAN: Nave with lower and narrower chancel, south tower, north vestry.

EXTERIOR: The church is in simple Decorated style. The tower is set back from the west end of the nave and its lower stage is the porch. It is 3-stage with diagonal buttresses and broach spire with lucarnes. The south doorway has a single order of shafts with foliage capitals, and cusped arch with relief foliage in the cusps. Two-light east and west windows have quatrefoil tracery lights. In the middle stage are small pointed quatrefoils beneath clock faces (added in 1920). The upper stage has attached corner shafts and 2-light bell openings with louvres. In the nave are single-light windows either side of the tower, and two 2-light windows further right. The north side has three 2-light windows and in the west wall are 2 single-light windows below a cusped circle, all spanned by a relieving arch. The chancel has diagonal buttresses, 3-light east window with intersecting tracery, two 2-light south windows and a trefoil-headed south doorway. The vestry has a pair of cusped east windows.

INTERIOR: The nave has a 5-bay hammerbeam roof on brackets, incorporating pierced trefoils above and below the beams. The chancel arch has 2 orders of chamfer, of which the inner is on corbelled shafts. The chancel has a canted boarded ceiling, painted blue. The chancel has a 2-bay north arcade with double-chamfered arches and octagonal central pier. One arch is filled by the organ, the other by a wooden screen with Gothic glazing in the arch. Walls are plastered. The floors are paved with stone, including an C18 memorial slab near the font, with raised wood floors below pews.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: In the vestry is a tablet commemorating the opening of the church. Most fixtures are later additions, except for the benches, which have square ends with moulded tops. The octagonal font is of Chellaston marble. C20 pulpit, choir stalls and communion rail are all decorated with linenfold panelling. An C18 marble tablet is to Edward Newcomen (d 1722) and wife Ann (d 1727). There is a fragment of medieval stained glass in a chancel south window, said to be St Margaret of Antioch. Other windows include St Margaret in the west window (1890) and crucifixion east window (1920).

HISTORY: Built in 1856-58 at a cost of £1673 by H.I. Stevens (1806-73), architect of Derby who built many churches in the East Midlands. It replaced an earlier church, from which an C18 monument and fragment of stained glass were salvaged for installation in the new church.

SOURCES:
G. K. Brandwood, Bringing them to their Knees: Church Building and Restoration in Leicestershire and Rutland 1800-1914, 2002, p 78.
N. Pevsner (revised E. Williamson), The Buildings of England: Leicestershire and Rutland, 1984, p 104.
M.J. Penny and R. Timms, St Margaret's Church, Blackfordby, 2009 ed.
Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society Archives.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Margaret, Blackfordby, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a well-proportioned mid C19 parish church of a single unified design and with an accomplished hammerbeam roof.
* It is prominently sited within the village and forms a strong group with the adjacent St Margaret's Church of England Primary School and Schoolhouse.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Parish Church of St Margaret of Antioch at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26333397

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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