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Photograph by Ian Rose, 1999
Church description from Essex, a dictionary of the county mainly ecclesiological, by G.Worley 1915
Margaret Roothing is named after the parish church (St. Margaret), which is the finest in the Roothings, and particularly rich in Norman work. The building includes nave, of very early Norman date, chancel (temp. Richard II), and a fifteenth century wooden belfry at the west end, containing one modern bell. On each side of the nave there were formerly three Norman splayed lights. but the easternmost has been converted into one of sixteenth-century style. Some of those which have escaped alteration have star-like ornaments with four points cut in the top outer stone. The south doorway is an elaborate Romanesque structure, its rounded arch enriched with chevron, billet, and dog-tooth mouldings, and the tympanum with diamond-shaped panels. Each of the jambs has two shafts, one plain, the other carved with longitudinal zigzag ornamentation. The star-like decdoration of the older windows appears again, in profusion, on the masonry at each side of this interesting doorway. The north entrance, though much plainer in detail, is remarkable as having a very low arch, with another of horseshoe shape above it. On the north side of the chancel there is an arcaded and crocketed recess, probably answering the double purpose of a tomb and an Easter sephulcre. Note ancient oak chest (10 ft. long and 3 ft. square at ends), protected by locks, bolts and bands of iron. Registers from 1538.