St Margaret's: 1,600 years of Christian witness

St Margaret's may be built on the oldest Christian site in Leicester, perhaps focused on an honoured grave within one of the cemeteries outside the Roman city

    ● It was the Bishop's church in Leicester from before the Norman Conquest until the early twentieth century. A 'Prebendal Church' is one attached to a cathedral, in this case Lincoln, a status conferred around the year 1200.

    ● The Bishop who served the people of the east Midlands was based in Leicester from 680 to 869. We can't be sure which was the cathedral church: perhaps St Margaret's, because it served the Bishop's huge manorial estate, which stretched from Leicester to the then rural village of Knighton. However, St Nicholas' in the centre of Roman and medieval Leicester may have a stronger claim. Both would have had other patron saints at the time.

    ● In 869 the bishop's see or centre of his diocese moved to Dorchester, Oxfordshire, and to Lincoln in 1067. After this huge diocese was divided into smaller bishoprics, Leicester was part of the Peterborough diocese between 1888 and 1927, when Leicestershire was formed into its own diocese and St Martin's, Leicester, was made the cathedral.

St Margaret's had among its clergy Robert Grosseteste, first Chancellor of Oxford University around 1200, and the greatest scholar in England in his day. He was Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253.

    ● It contributed to the spiritual formation of John Penny, the son of a Mayor of Leicester, and successively Abbot of Leicester (1496-1509), Bishop of Bangor (1505-8), and Bishop of Carlisle (1508-21), in the period leading up to the tumultuous changes of the Reformation.

    ● It was also the spiritual home and eventual burial place of Mary Linwood (1756-1845), the world-famous embroiderer.

St Margaret's served a huge industrial parish in the nineteenth century, with thousands of poor homes. Because it lay outside the city walls, the church was the driving force in local government, organising street paving and lighting, schools, work and housing for the destitute, and many other social needs

● A next-door neighbour was the famous Corah knitwear factory, which for decades produced the nationally popular 'St Margaret' brand sold by Marks & Spencer. In 2006 we hope to unveil on a new site alongside St Margaret's Way the statue of the saint which stood over the factory entrance.

● Marriages at St Margaret's between July 1837 and May 1897 are listed on David Mann's website.