Churches of the British Isles

St Denys Walmgate is on the block inside Walmgate, Dennis Street and St Denys Road, within the walls on the south-east side of the city. The area seems originally to have been a suburb of the Roman city, which grew up round the old 'Waingate' (the street of the wagons). Built on the site of a Saxon church and possibly a Roman temple, this small medieval church was first recorded between 1154-1170. The medieval nave stood to the west of the tower here.

The church comprises a short, narrow nave with wide north and south aisles. The modern nave is the medieval church's chancel, a survivor when the old nave was demolished in 1798. At the same date the spire was removed and the doorway of about 1160 reset in the south chapel. The tower was dismantled and rebuilt in 1846. The grave of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin, hanged in 1739 on the Knavesmire, lies in St George's graveyard just a few hundred metres away.

The Parish Church of St Margaret Walmgate stands on the south-west corner of Navigation Road and Percy's Lane. The church is first mentioned in a charter dated between 1177 and 1181 when the advowson was granted to St Leonard's Hospital, but it certainly existed before that time - the doorway to the porch dates to about 1160 and is said to have come from St Nicholas Lawrence Street. Much of the fabric of the church was rebuilt in the fourteenth century.

The church comprises a nave and north aisle (visible on the right here), porch, vestry, and tower, much of which is is fourteenth century. Apart from the porch and the tower (which dates from 1684), the church was rebuilt in 1852, although much of the style of the older building survived. Elements of that building remain in the tracery of some windows on the south side of the nave and in the east window. The church closed in 1955. It is now the National Centre for Early Music.

All photos on this page kindly contributed by Colin Hinson. Additional information by John Grant.