Details
1802/0/10023 WOODHOUSE ROAD
26-AUG-03 Leytonstone
Church of St Margaret of Antioch and a
ttached railings
II
MATERIALS: yellow stock brick in Flemish bond with mostly red brick dressings, some blue, incorporating rubbed and moulded brick; Welsh slate roof with dentilled eaves and apex crosses or mouldings.
PLAN: nave with W baptistery, N and S aisles, shallow SW and NW porches, SE Lady Chapel, N transept and NE vestry block; chancel integral with nave - sharing the ridge but offset at eaves.
EXTERIOR: A Late Gothic Revival church in lofty basilica style. The most striking feature is its loftiness; the soaring W end unemphasised by a tower, making the impact on the main approach. Windows throughout are narrow, mainly lancets, mostly tripartite, with stepped red-brick surrounds: clerestory windows are tripartite, aisle windows are small and round-headed; E and W windows, also tripartite, have exceptionally long and narrow lights, even narrower to the N transept. The bays are defined by pilasters or stepped buttresses. On the W elevation the window accounts for the major part of the steeply gabled frontage; the long lancets of the tripartite window, tallest at centre, have stepped surrounds, a continuous hood-mould and slender separating pilasters and are recessed in a giant window-shaped panel with hood-mould over; small tripartite opening in apex above; side buttresses with gabled cap forming kneelers to the gable verges. In the centre below is the small baptistery lean-to wing flanked by turret buttresses; at each side is the low tripartite W window of each aisle. On the S elevation the high clerestory windows are separated by pilasters between eaves and the deep lean-to aisle roof; the ground floor bays are also separated by buttresses with stepped offsets of angled brick, 2 windows to a bay. At the very SW corner is the gabled porch flanked by simple turret buttresses with a fine wide moulded brick round-headed arch of 5 orders, recessed cross above. The tympanum is of plain ashlar with an iron lamp fitting at centre over the fluted stone pier separating the pair of boarded doors with decorative hinges. The N elevation has a very similar porch at NW corner but it is set against the lower stages of an unbuilt tower with polygonal staircase bay, now with hipped roofs. The gabled NE transept has a stepped polygonal turret with pyramidal roof at E and a large similar tripartite window but with exceptionally narrow lights, almost like extended arrow-loops; it has a further entrance doorway to right, similarly enriched with brick orders, slightly more pointed than the main porches and with a single door; paired lancets to left; further similar doorway on E side. The E end, not so readily visible, is similar to the W, with the lower separately gabled Lady Chapel with tripartite window, slightly cusped, adjoining at same level at SE and the gabled vestry block at right angles below with flying buttress over. Similar and dated cast-iron hoppers and downpipes.
INTERIOR: the wide aisles and high and broad arcades with slender piers create a sense of loftiness. Roofs of dark stained wood, comprising ribbed boarded wagon ceilings cantilevered out on triangular strut brackets at eaves level, a hammer-beam effect; slender trusses of tie beam, king post and a high triangle of struts and intermediate collar trusses to nave. The roof narrows to chancel which has collar trusses with curved principal rafters; sloping aisle roofs have deep moulded corbel brackets between aisle windows. Floor of parquet woodblock throughout incorporating some heating grilles. At NW is the vault to the lower stage of the tower, which was never built. At W the baptistery recess has a wide gabled round-arch flanked by turrets. Arcades have wide pointed moulded arches of unequal orders with a continuous hood-mould, narrow polygonal capitals and slender piers fluted for 2/3rds their length. In the spandrels and at the apexes are the responds to corbels for the strut brackets, symmetrically between each clerestory window; the tripartite lights are set back in deep arched reveals and emphasised by a continuous string-course/ sillband. The division between nave and slightly narrower chancel is emphasised by the dramatic cambered polychrome wood rood beam with the crucified Christ and Saint Mary and Saint John, polychrome wooden figures; below is a low wall with panels of red and green painted stencil decoration with further polychrome figures of saints in dark-wood canopies. The 2-bay chancel continues the lines of clerestory and arcade, though the latter arches are blind enclosing paired part-blind arches. Above to N is the tall arch to the organ chamber, the clustered pipes and moulded part gilded case partly visible; to S a very decorative sedilia comprising two steeply pointed Decorated style crocketed canopies, set rather narrowly within one blind arch, matching sedilia at E corner; adjacent the arches were opened when the Lady Chapel was built. The polychrome brickwork of the interior has been over-painted.
FURNISHINGS: The E end has the high altar, of dark stained and gilded wood, deeply carved and tiered; above the Murillo painting set against a curtain under a canopy forms the reredos. The Lady Chapel has a green mosaic floor and Arts and Crafts furnishings matching its slightly later date; the windows are cusped; altar frontal unusually of painted wood - another displayed in vestry. The C17 paintings (above) are arranged liturgically, some associated with altars. Stations of the Cross are as traditionally along the nave walls. Stained glass has been gradually introduced into the windows throughout the life of the church in the small nave windows and there is an interesting variety of windows of different dates and artists, including mid - late C20 (Beningfield, King). The richly carved altar is from Oberammergau to the design of a local artist and a Memorial to the First Bishop of St Albans (see history); altar candlesticks have the same provenance. The organ came from a redundant city church; its pipework is of some interest but the mechanism is unworkable. A carved wooden memorial pulpit of 1908 at NE nave. Wooden open pews to nave, carved to chancel.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: The church is surrounded by a contemporary set of cast iron railings and gates by Bayliss, Jones and Bayliss Ltd of London: the railings with spear finials, stanchions with pyramidal finials with paired brick and stone gatepiers.
HISTORY: The church, a successor to an iron mission church, has a foundation stone of 1892, the parish created 1893 to serve the rapidly expanding suburban community. Architect JT Newman and William Jacques, builder SJ Scott, (re dedication stone). JT Newman (1831-96) was architect to London School Boards, surveyor to London Hospital Estates Sub-committee and to the Council of the Bishop of St Albans Fund. William Jacques, a former pupil, became his partner in 1869. The partnership was also responsible for Christ Church Sutton, of similar design, and JT Newman for the Martyr's Memorial of 1878 on the Broadway at Stratford, not far away. Lady Chapel added 1910. The rood beam and chancel screen/wall are by Sir Charles Nicholson dedicated 1921; he was also responsible for the Madonna and Child and St Margaret statues. The church contains some notable Baroque oil paintings collected and donated by a previous incumbent, including ones after Murillo and Guido Reni; others depict the Salvator Mundi and The Deposition, all with fine gilded frames. The set of Stations of the Cross is by local artist AF Prynne and three local women under his direction. The church is listed for its architectural quality, and as a good example of the picturesque historicist style of the Late Victorian High Anglican tradition.
