The Church of St Margaret of Antioch at

Darenth Darenth is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles south east of Dartford and 4.6 miles north east of Swanley. History The parish was part of Axstane Hundred and later Dartford Rural Distr ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, is a church with Norman origins thought to be the third oldest in Kent and the sixth oldest in the United Kingdom. It is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The chancel and nave are late 10th century or early 11th century. The sanctuary is early 12th century. The church was restored twice in the 19th century, first by

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian era, Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, ...

in 1866-68 and then by Ewan Christian in 1888. Newman describes the church as "important, but visually rather charmless."

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Darenth, Saint Margaret of Antioch Church of England church buildings in Kent English churches with Norman architecture Grade I listed churches in Kent William Burges church buildings 10th-century church buildings in England Diocese of Rochester English churches dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch