St Augustine, Snave

St Augustine’s is a Grade II* medieval church at Snave on Romney Marsh, Kent, declared redundant in 1983 and since maintained by the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust.

Overview

Historic England lists a parish church of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, restored in 1873 by C. T. Whitley. The fabric is roughly coursed stone with a plain tile roof. The plan is a two-stage battlemented west tower (fourteenth or early fifteenth century), a broad thirteenth-century nave, a nineteenth-century south porch, a chancel set towards the south side of the nave, and a north chapel that projects beyond the nave. The west doorway is a moulded two-centred arch with carved-head stops. The north elevation of the nave retains two cusped fourteenth-century two-light windows, largely original.

The church is one of the smallest on the Marsh and the only redundant church there. The Trust intervened after redundancy to keep it in ecclesiastical use; an annual harvest or thanksgiving service continues under the Saxon Shore benefice. The north chapel, later used as a schoolroom, has a nineteenth-century stone chimney. Features noted by the Trust include a fourteenth-century chancel arch, a king-post nave roof, George II royal arms, encaustic tiles, and an octagonal medieval font recovered in 1929 from use as a rainwater butt. Spring daffodils give the church its local name, the Daffodil Church.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1061152
• Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust: Snave