A History of the Parish Church of St. Margaret of Antioch, East Wellow has been written by Wellow History Society and is available in the church at a cost of £1.

The present flint-faced stone building was consecrated in 1215, but there are earlier foundations beneath the present building. From 1251 until the Dissolution of the monasteries, the church was controlled by the monks of Netley Abbey, to the East of Southampton.

It’s a building of its time. Many similar buildings of the period have wall paintings. Ours were whitewashed over at the Reformation, and rediscovered in the 1890s. It is also dedicated to St. Margaret of Antioch, a patron favoured by Crusaders returning from the Holy Land. In particular, please note the depiction of St Christopher carrying the infant Christ over a river (immediately opposite the South Door) and St Margaret herself, sitting on a hillock, spinning (to the right of that painting).

No one knows why the building seems so cut off from the village as it now stands. People murmur, “Plague”, though without any evidence at all. In early days there seem to have been three settlements, Embley, East Wellow and West Wellow, and my best guess is that St Margaret’s was a building closely associated with the manor house, possibly built by them. There is no archaeological evidence of a sizable settlement in the vicinity of the church building.

St Margaret’s has been relatively untouched by time and the Victorians. It was probably a rectangular building, from the chancel step to immediately to the west of the main door, extended to the West and by the addition of a Chancel in the late 13th Century. A small South aisle was added in the 15th Century, the pulpit in the 17th Century, and pews, proper flooring and a vestry in the 19th Century.

In the graveyard lies the Nightingale family monument, burial place of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.