The Canterbury Tales - St Margaret's Street, Canterbury, UK - Official Local Tourism Attractions on Waymarking.com

The Britain Express website tells us about the attraction:

An extremely popular family attraction tells the story of medieval life through the characters made famous by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is housed in the historic church of St Margarets, which would have been known to real medieval pilgrims.

Experience the sights, sounds, and smells of medieval Canterbury through interactive displays, authentic recreations of street scenes, and a modern retelling of Chaucer's Tale.

Follow Chaucer's Pilgrims from the Tabard tavern in London, to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Audio guides are available in many languages and thete is a special childen's audio guide.

Be warned: in the summer months Canterbury Tales can be very crowded; the attraction is a popular destination for school groups and tour busses, so you may have to line up and wait your turn.

The building is Grade II* listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:

Former parish church. C12 in origin but rebuilt in C15 and heavily restored C1850 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Faced with knapped flint with stone dressings and tiled roof. 3 bay nave with chancel reduced to a polygonal apse by Scott for road widening, north and south aisles and south west tower. South west tower has C15 lower stage with clasping buttresses and octagonal turret added by Scott, and squarish bell stage with lancets and crenellated parapet recon- structed after bomb damage in 1942. Nave is C15 restored with west gable end with Decorated style traceried window by Scott and west doorway which is a Scott copy of the Mid C12 doorway with shafts and billet on the hood mould. Aisles are also C15 altered by Scott and have Decorated style windows. Continuous plinth moulding. Interior has 3 bay nave with 4 bay crownpost roof. Aisles have reconstructed octagonal piers and a double wave on the arches. Early C14 piscina in south wall of North chapel. Good monuments including Sir George Newman (d 1627), a large wall monument at east end of south aisle with effigy in legal robes reclining on one side set in architectural surround including columns, open pediment and scrolls flanking the inscription. Joseph Colfe (d 1620) an architectural wall tablet and John Watson (d 1642) in the South wall, a half-figure facing the front in architectural niche wearing a ruff and resting his left hand on a skull. There are a series of good C17 and C18 wall plaques including one to John Barret and Paul Lukin (d 1709) a big architectural tablet with mourning putti signed by John Friend. Brass to John Wynter, twice Mayor of Canterbury (d 1470) in civilian dress. The church was built on the remains of Roman public baths. At first belonging to St Augustine's Abbey the church was given to the Poor Priests Hospital in 1271 in whose hands it remained until 1575.

The Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society website tells us:

Introduction
St Margaret's is now a redundant church, but is probably the most visited church in Canterbury in its modern role as an audio–visual  tourist attraction based on  Geoffrey Chaucer's  “Canterbury Tales”.

History
St Margaret's church was founded in the 12th century, though much of the present structure dates from the 14th century when it was developed as a perpendicular style 3 aisle church with a  stone and flint exterior.  In 1791 the  chancel  and eastern end of the aisles were  truncated to allow horse drawn coaches to swing into the gate of the prestigious Royal Fountain Hotel exactly opposite. Around 1850 the interior was refurbished in the Victorian style, the pitched roofs added to the aisles  and the chancel developed into the polygonal form that can be seen today by Sir Gilbert Scott. It became redundant in 1942 and was a church for the deaf until being converted into the Canterbury Tales visitor attraction in 1986. Since then the  interior has been completely obscured by the exhibition, but photographs from 1942 of the original church can be accessed at the link below. These include an image of a  monument to William Somner, the famous Canterbury historian and compiler of the first Anglo-Saxon dictionary, who died in 1669.

What to see:
 

• The exterior of the church showing the perpendicular windows to the south wall.
   
• The eastern end of the church showing how precisely the nave and aisles have been truncated to the revised street line.
   
• The highly decorative neo-gothic polygonal eastern apse from 1850.
   
• The western facade and perpendicular tower with a Victorian external staircase.
   
• The only remains of the  original mid 12th century church is the heavily restored Romanesque west door.

Access:  The church can be viewed externally at all times, but the interior is now completely obscured.

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