St Margaret’s Church, Luddington in the Brook
This cache has been placed to celebrate the restoration of the church in 2017.
A short walk across the field of approx. 150m leads you to the church of St Margaret’s, so this is a semi-quick cache and dash, but can be done at a more leisurely pace if you wish to look around.
The church is now some distance away from the village of Luddington in the Brook – this was not always the case, and it is the village that has moved away from the church to its present location.
The church of St Margaret consists of a chancel, clerestoried nave, south aisle, south porch and west tower. The building is of rubble masonry with plain parapets and large grotesque gargoyles. The roofs of the nave and aisle are covered with lead, and the chancel is covered with grey slates. The tower is surmounted by a short broach spire.
The church is almost entirely of 15th century date, but it appears to have taken the place of a 13th century church, which seems to have had both north and south aisles. The building was completely restored in 1874, the chancel being rebuilt, but four lancet windows (three on the north and one on the south) which survived from the 15th century were retained. The buttresses and part of the walling on the west end of the nave may belong to the 13th century, the north buttress indicating the line of the former north arcade. The spire dates from the 1874 rebuild, but it is said to be a copy of a spire which had long before been destroyed. Before this restoration, the base remained covered with a slated pyramidal roof. The vast majority of glass in the church is clear, however there are four tracery panels of medieval glass in two windows; one in the south aisle, one in the north nave.
The church was again restored in 2016-17 thanks to a large Heritage Lottery Fund Grant.
The churchyard is being developed as a wildlife conservation area. We are allowing some areas of grass to grow longer than others, particularly at the rear of the churchyard, to provide a variety of habitats. The site is being managed in a way that will encourage a wider range of wildflowers, grasses, insects, birds and animals.
If you would like to add to the Church Micro series yourself then please look here
http://churchmicro.co.uk/
Please do contact sadexploration first so that he can keep track of the church numbers to avoid duplication.