Details
710/1/37 QUEENS ROAD
20-MAY-76 ILKLEY
CHURCH OF ST MARGARET
II*
DATES OF MAIN PHASES, NAME OF ARCHITECT: Parish church of 1878-79 by Richard Norman Shaw, with late C19 and early C20 fittings.
MATERIALS: Snecked dressed sandstone with freestone dressings, lead roofs.
PLAN: Aisled nave with north-west porch, chancel with north chapel and south organ chamber built over vestries and boiler room.
EXTERIOR: Free-Perpendicular style church that utilises the slope of the ground on the north and east sides to create a monumental character. Four-bay aisles are buttressed and have pairs of 3-light windows, below straight-headed pairs of 3-light clerestorey windows. The nave has a 10-light west window, the aisles 3-light west windows. The storeyed porch has diagonal buttresses, entrance with polygonal responds and hollow-moulded arch, and hood mould with heraldic stops. Above it is a small square-headed 2-light window, and in the south-west angle is a polygonal stair turret. The inner porch doorway has a continuous moulding and linenfold-panel doors. Between nave and chancel is a gabled bellcote with cusped openings for 2 bells. The chancel east end is impressively tall, with massive angle buttresses, and plain coped parapet. It has a 9-light east window set high above a narrow vestry door, two 2-light transomed north and south windows, above tall blind arches which, on the north side, incorporate 3-light vestry windows. Chapel and organ chamber project like transepts and have stone stacks in the east walls. The north chapel has a 5-light north window, the organ chamber a pair of high-set 2-light south windows, and straight-headed 5-light vestry east window, of which the central light is taller. There is a link at the east end of the south aisle to a parish centre of the early C21.
INTERIOR: The interior is wide and spacious. Four-bay nave arcades are Decorated rather than Perpendicular, with wide double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers. The chancel arch is similar but incorporates hollow mouldings, on polygonal responds. The 8-bay nave roof comprises corbelled arched braces below tie beams, and the chancel roof is similar but with intermediate trusses without arched braces. The east window has a shafted rere-arch. Sedilia are beneath a segmental pointed arch, beside which is a piscina under a square hood mould. Walls are exposed stone. The floor is laid with plain tiles, with parquet floors below nave and aisle seating, and floorboards below choir stalls.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: A polygonal baptistery is beneath the west window. It is raised on steps, enclosed by a low arcaded wooden screen, below a canopy with pendants, brattishing and surmounted by carved angels. The octagonal font, on a buttresses stem, was installed in 1911, following Shaw's design but not entirely faithful in its execution. Simple benches with open backs are retained in the aisles. The monumental freestone pulpit, dated 1881, has blind Gothic tracery below a frieze of angels. There are screens across the east end of nave and aisles, by James Elwell of Beverley (d 1926), which incorporate iron grilles, tracery to main lights and coving. The nave screen is surmounted by a rood of 1928 by Faith Craft Studios. Outer screens have paired gates with ramped top rails. Stations of the Cross in north, west and south walls are brightly painted square plaster panels in wood frames, designed by Faith Craft Studios. Early C20 choir stalls have ends with buttresses and pinnacles, and open Gothic frontals. The wooden communion rail is by Thompson of Kilburn. The reredos is an opulent wooden triptych with double-hinged outer panels (allowing it to be closed during Lent), erected in 1925 at a cost of £1,350. It was designed by J. Harold Gibbons of Westminster, carved by Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham, and painted and gilded by Gugleilus Tosi. It is decorated with abundant foliage and the central panel has carved figures of Christ and Apostles below a Gothic canopy. There are several stained glass windows of the late C19 and early C20, including 6 by Powell & Sons (1897, 1902, 1906, 1907, 1919). These include the Creation and Revelation west and east windows (1897), both of which were designed by Shaw and were installed at a cost of £1,150. There are also windows by Clayton & Bell (1882), Morris & Co (1894, 1902), Shrigley & Hunt, Martin Travers (1937), and a panel by H.J. Salisbury (c1911) brought from Dunstable in 2004.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: In the churchyard the 1914-18 war memorial is a medieval-type churchyard cross.
HISTORY: An Anglican church built in 1878-79 at a cost of £12,809, including furnishings; it was built to cater for visitors to the Hydro at Ilkely, a therapeutic centre since the 1840s. The architect was Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912). Shaw had been principal assistant in the office of G.E. Street before starting his own practice. Although best known for developing a style of architecture based on English vernacular buildings, which he used for numerous town and country houses, he also built several Gothic churches of considerable artistry, of which Ilkley St Margaret is among those calculated to look impressive on a hillside site (as at Richards Castle, Shropshire). "Through not the finest of Shaw's church-building achievements, it is the most reflective, and the prototype of his major churches afterwards" (Saint). Some of the fittings, such as reredos, screens and font, are later, although the baptistery was based on Shaw's design. A parish room was added in the early C21.
SOURCES:
Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: Yorkshire, West Riding (1967), 277.
Saint, A., Richard Norman Shaw (2010), 307.
Weston, S., St Margaret's Parish Church, Ilkley: A Guide to the Stained-Glass Windows (2005).
St Margaret's Church, Ilkley: A Short Guide to the Church, n.d.
Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society Archives, file 08112.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Margaret, Ilkley, is designated Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* It is a large late C19 Gothic church of Perpendicular design, and distinguished by the ingenious use of the sloping site to create a monumental character, a feature of other Norman Shaw churches.
* The interior is especially notable for the quality and extent of its late C19 and early C20 fittings, including the reredos, chancel screen, and stained-glass windows, 2 of which were designed by Shaw. Its intactness and cohesion are notable.
* It is a significant church in the work of Richard Norman Shaw, one of the most influential of all Victorian architects.
This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 31 January 2017.
