St Alphege With St Margaret

NW tower, N chapel, chancel and nave are all late C12 or early C13 in origin.

Some C14 windows.

Nave and chancel arcade rebuilt c.1468.

Tower partly tile hung.

The upper part is tile hung, and it has a tiled, pyramidal cap.

The tower serves as the porch, and the NW door is C15 and has a pointed head in a square frame with carved spandrels

it partially blocks a late C12 or early C13 lancet.

The outer doors are plain and possibly C15.

The inner doorway is late C15 or early C16 and has tiny mouldings on attached shafts

The chancel chapel N wall has two C14 windows with a C13 lancet between them.

The aisle N wall, distinguished from the chancel chapel by a moulded plinth with simple flint flushwork, has three late C15 windows of three cusped lights in square heads.

The S side has restored C14 windows of two lights in square heads, a former priest's door,

a C13 lancet towards the W end.

There is no chancel arch, and the nave and chancel are roofed in one with a five-bay, C15 crown post roof.

The aisle and chapel are also roofed together with a C15 common rafter roof with tie beams.

One pier has an integral image niche with a plaque below it commemorating Thomas Prude, d.1468, 'per quem fit ista columpna' (who built this pier), which probably provides a building date for the whole arcade.

Very elaborate C15 door to the former rood loft with an ogee hood mould with head stops

it cuts a former window of the C12 or early C13.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES C15 or early C16 font, polygonal with shields and roses on the bowl and a panelled stem.

Font cover, probably C17, in an ogee shape, and has an elaborate contemporary bracket to lift it.

Some medieval glass fragments reset, and a Continental grisaille panel of the crucifixion.

Also some good C19 glass.

The church retains a good collection of monuments, including a brass for a priest, Robert Gosbourne, d.

1523,

wall tablets from the C17 to the C19.

There are also some hatchments.

HISTORY The earliest visible fabric is C12 or early C13, but there may have been a church here before that date.

By the early C13, the remains of the lancet windows in the N wall of the aisle and chapel, and in the E wall of the chancel, indicate that the church had a N aisle and N chapel by that date.

The tower is also late C12 or early C13 in origin.

It was refenestrated in the C14,

in the mid C15 it was greatly remodelled with the construction of the arcade and the roofs

It was briefly used by the Huguenot congregation in the late C16 before they moved to the crypt of the cathedral, where the French protestant church remains today.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The church of St Alphege with St Margaret, Canterbury, is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * Significant medieval parish church, C12 or early C13 in origin, extensively rebuilt internally in c.1468. * Interesting remaining fittings, including font, monuments and glass.