Talk:St Margaret's Church, Ifield/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum 13:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll add my comments section by section as I go through the article over the next day or so.

Thanks Malleus. I will be editing today as well ... haven't touched the article since it was written, so its nomination will force me to make improvements (especially to the lead, which I realise is not of GA standard at present...). Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 13:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Lead

• I think the lead is probably a little on the short side to adequately summarise the article. For instance, there's nothing about interior fittings, even though the font is obviously pretty remarkable.

Some more added now. I think all aspects are now summarised. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 22:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• "Additions in the 14th century included two stone effigies of a knight and his wife". That's slightly confusing, as it could mean two stone effigies, one of a knight and the other of his wife, or two stone effigies each of which is of a knight and his wife.

Tweaked a little to remove the ambiguous "two". Also added the word "representing", which may be slightly better in the context. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

History

• There's a lot of detail in the first paragraph that seems out of place. For instance, why are we told about the ancient parish of Ifield in the very first sentence? Or that Ifield is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086? What has that got to do with St Margaret's?

I would argue that it is important to give the church's existence a wider context. "Why is there an ancient church at Ifield?", one could ask (especially in view of its transformation into a late 20th-century housing estate!) – well, there was already a village in existence by the 11th century, it was near a priory, and it was a large parish (unspoken implication: a church was needed to serve a large area). I feel a paragraph of context is reasonable and not excessive, although I acknowledge that the best place for a full account (i.e. several paragraphs) of this sort of history would be the Ifield, West Sussex article. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 16:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• "Ecclesiastical feeling moved in favour of austere, whitewashed walls, screens and pillars by the 17th century, however, and the rood screen and all internal decoration have been removed." The tenses are a little bit strange here with "have been removed" immediately following the new ecclesiastical austerity of the 17th century. Presumably the rood screen and so on were removed during that period, else it makes no sense to coinjoin the two ideas, but "have been removed" makes it seem like it could have happened yesterday. If it was Goddin who had them removed then it would make more sense to relate their removal after he's been introduced to the reader.

This diff shows the changes. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 16:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• "The tree marked the ancient county boundary between Sussex and Surrey,[16] and has given its name to a retail park and industrial area near the present Manor Royal estate in the north of Crawley." In what way is it important for our understanding of St Margarets that a tree has given its name to a nearby retail park and industrial area?

True; I've removed that bit. I considered recasting the whole sentence to put the "marked the county boundary bit" before the "cut down" bit, but the whole thing would probably become horribly unwieldy... Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• "The church is approached from the east end through a lychgate". Not quite sure what this is trying to tell me. East end of what? If it's the east end of the church then "from" seems to make no sense.

"End" looks to have strayed in there when I was thinking about the east end of the church. Removed. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Memorials and churchyard

• "Architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner had great praise for the effigies". Pevsner was referred to in the previous section, so the link and description of who/what he is should be there, not here. I don't think we need the honorific either.

Yep: swapped round (the bit about the tower being perplexing was a later introduction to the article). "Sir" also removed. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• "... but was buried at St Margaret's when he died in 1870." Lucky for him he wasn't buried before he died.

Indeed; removed the unnecessary words. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• "... there are Coade Stone embellishments". It was "Coade stone" earlier.

Good spot; s/be lower-case, so changed. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The parish and church today

• The MoS says that section headings ought to begin with "the".[1]

I haven't noticed that before; "Parish and church today" looks a bit abrupt, but I have changed it to that. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• "St Margaret's was listed at Grade I by English Heritage on 23 February 1983". We already said this in the previous section.

I have removed it from the latter, where it wasn't adding much. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• "Buildings classified as Grade I are considered to be of "exceptional interest" and national importance.[25] There is a Sunday morning service and other events throughout the week." Reads like a stream of consciousness; it's difficult to see what the connection is between a Grade I listing and Sunday morning services. I suggest that the explanation of the listing is moved to the lead.

I've taken out the services info. I'm afraid I'm unconvinced about moving the listing explanation to the lead: it would then be absent from the body of the article. The fact that it is Grade I-listed is the key point, so that is summmarised in the lead; the explanation provides further (but less important) info. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 22:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• You may be able to persuade me otherwise, but I think this section loses focus, particularly in the third and final paragraph. This is an article about the church, not the parish, and I'm very unconvinced about the relevance of the photo of St Leonards. The argument I suppose might be that St Margaret's is the parish church, but what does that actually mean in this case?

In a similar vein to my response to your first comment under the "History" heading: while the church (i.e. the building) is the main focus of the article, I feel there should be some attempt to put its function itno context. It is in active use, so it is reasonable to describe the area it serves (whereas there would be little value in describing the parish of a redundant church, for example). Then, because there are other churches under its control, they need to be mentioned briefly. I have added a bit to clarify the role of St Margaret's Church as the parish church. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 22:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

References

• There's one dead link.[2]

Thanks. My interenet connection has been flaky tonight, but I hope to start working on these points tomorrow. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 22:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

There's no rush. It confused me slightly when you popped up to defend the article, as Dr Blofeld nominated it. Anyway, as I said, no rush. Malleus Fatuorum 22:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep; Dr B. was talking to me a while ago (when we were collaborating on The George Hotel, Crawley, I think) and he said he would nominate some articles to which I had been the primary contributor. I rarely/never get round to nominating anything at GA, mainly because I'm always moving straight on to the next thing, so it's a good opportunity for me to revisit old stuff and make changes, updates etc. which I had been meaning to do but hadn't otherwise got round to. (A kick up the backside, in other words!) A good example is that deadlink ... English Heritage moved the URL about a year ago, and I haven't yet got round to updating the ref in all the articles using the old one. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Ooops sorry for the delay. I thought I had put this article on my watchlist.!! Thanks.Dr. Blofeld 16:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

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• OK, you've convinced me. Malleus Fatuorum 15:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.