Details
ST41SE
3/193
WEST CHINNOCK CP
MIDDLE CHINNOCK
Church of Saint Margaret
19.4.61
GV
II*
Church. C12 origins, with C14/C15 tower and south porch; most of the remainder rebuilt in phases during C19. Ham stone ashlar and dressings; Welsh slates between coped gables, stone slates to porch.
Cruciform plan, with west tower and south porch; chancel in C14 style, two bays, probably rebuilt 1866-1867; offset corner buttresses to 2/3 height, plinth, cill course; three-light traceried east window and two-light traceried windows to side walls. North and south transepts added in 1836; plain with simple plinth to north transept and east wall of south transept, no buttresses; two-light traceried windows in C14 style in end and east walls. Nave of three bays plus crossing, reshaped with removal of galleries 1866-1867; buttresses to bays on north wall, south porch in middle south wall; C15 and C16 style traceried windows.
South porch of early C14, with plinth, stepped coping to gable, crowned by unusual hollowed sundial needing no gnomon; transitional style arch in chamfered recess, the rear of columns and capitals cut away for former floors; bench seats, under the west being a cusped canopy with recumbent effigy thought to be a C14 priest, the whole restored 1928 by W.D. Caröe. Entrance through fine C12 doorway with outer chevroned order around jambs and arch, and similar inner order to jambs, with zig-zag ornament to lintel, fish scale decoration to tympanum surmounted by lozenge style arch; the door probably C17.
Tower basically of C14, in two stages with plinth, offset angled buttresses to height of taller first stage, rectangular plan stair turret at the east end of the north side, to halfway up stage two; crenellation to stair turret and main tower, the latter having corner pinnacles, lead spouts to west corners and gargoyles to east corners; simple moulded four-centre arched doorway in west wall under square label with figure stops, the left of which appears to be a bishop; immediately above a three-light traceried window of mid C15 under printed label; second stage has small plain cusped lancets cut into single rectangular stones, with recessed spardrils under square labels, one to each face.
The interior mostly C19 in character, with ribbed panelled barrel vault ceilings, wide chancel and transept arches in C14 style, tall tower arch of C15 with two continuous panels; pulpit possibly of C18, octagonal with fielded panels; hatchment of 1660; font of C12 with unusual scroll band decoration to bowl, on slightly later base; some probably C18 panelling incorporated into pews in south transept. (W.D. Caröe or collaborator, brief notes in church 1928).
Listing NGR: ST4721213126
