Description

HALSTEAD

771/14/492 CHURCH STREET
10-SEP-54 HALSTEAD
(East side)
CHURCH OF ST MARGARET

II
1880-1 by W M Teulon. J P St Aubyn and Wadling are said to have carried out an unspecified enlargement in 1897 (perhaps the vestry). N extension 1992.

MATERIALS: Knapped flint with red brick and limestone dressings. Clay tile roofs.

PLAN: Nave, lower chancel, N and S aisles, S porch, N organ/chamber vestry, three-bay N room to N of N aisle.

EXTERIOR: The principal façade of the church is that on the S which is dominated by a large catslide roof covering both nave and S aisle. The aisle wall is low and has three small single-light windows and also a two-light window under its own gable towards the E end. The chancel has similar two-light windows to its S wall and a three-light Geometrical window in the E wall. Straddling the W gable of the nave is large one-light bellcote. The S porch is of timber on a flint-faced plinth. There is no clerestory. The N extension which provides a meeting room etc is under three transverse gables and harmonises well with the Victorian building except for the stylistically incongruous mullion-and-transom treatment of the windows.

INTERIOR: The walls are plastered and whitened. Either side of the nave is a three-bay arcade with round stone piers, moulded capitals and bases, and deeply moulded brick arches. The treatment of the chancel arch is similar. Over the nave there is a rather spindly roof with arch-braces to the main trusses. The chancel roof is treated slightly differently, being six-sided and having cusping to its single main truss.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: There is extensive late C19 work. The dominant feature is the pewing whose shaped ends are an unusual variant on the common inverted Y type that was often used as an economical form of seating in Victorian churches. At the E end there is a five-bay reredos with arched panels. Either side there is a dado with blind tracery panels. The C19 organ case houses decorated pipes and has a canted front: it has been suggested (Newman) that it is probably to Teulon¿s design. The font is to a conventional design, octagonal with quatrefoils on the panels of the bowl: it was made in 1849 and came from the old church. There are patterned encaustic tiles in the chancel. There are a number of stained glass windows with work by Kempe, 1899 (chancel S), Morris and Co., 1909 (N aisle), and Powell's, 1867 (E window, designed by Enrico Casolani, and moved from the old church). There are brasses to William Burys (d. 1444) and to William Petley (d. 1528) and his wife. The white marble monument to James Ashe (d. 1733) is signed by Jonathan Barker and is this sculptor's only known work. In the extension there is a large panel of 1999-2000 made up of tiled scenes of the locality and the names of residents and local community groups.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Timber memorial lychgate on a red-brick plinth, 2004: a modern work in an old tradition.

HISTORY: Halstead church was rebuilt on a new site and was consecrated on 3 March 1881. The chancel is said to be on the site of a former burial chapel ground built in 1854 by J P Atkins of Halstead Place.The main benefactor of the new church was T F Burnaby-Atkins of Halstead Place. The architect, William Milford Teulon (1823-1900), was the younger brother of the more prolific and famous Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-73). He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860.

SOURCES: Roger Homan, The Victorian Churches of Kent, 1984, p. 63.
John Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, 1980, p. 314.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The church St Margaret, Halstead, of is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is an attractive country church built in the late C19 in the Gothic Revival style.
* It retains an extensive collection of fittings from the late C19.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Margaret's Church, Halstead at Wikipedia
• St Margaret's Church, Halstead official website
• Wikidata Q7594103

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)