The original parish church for Putney from Norman times was St Mary the Virgin, Wimbledon, a four-mile walk away.

By 1302 St Mary the Virgin, Putney had been built in its current place by the river as a Chapel of Ease, becoming its own parish in 1658.

The Victorians, ever keen church builders constructed Holy Trinity, Roehampton in 1842 (becoming a parish in 1862), St John's in 1859 and All Saints’ In 1874.

[1] It was originally a Baptist chapel completed in 1873 in memory of his mother, for the lodge which is now the site of Granard primary school.

He was a bright young thing who, having studied in Germany, where liberal attitudes to Biblical criticism were prevalent, controversially brought in the new translation of the Bible, the Revised Standard Version on its publication in 1881.

Within the congregation was also the Victorian Liberal and Radical John Bright and a future Lord Chancellor, Douglas Hogg, the first Viscount Hailsham.

After a slow moving appeal for the £2000 needed, Mr Seth Taylor, having thankfully foregone former ideas of turning it into a laundry or simply knocking it down, magnanimously gave the chapel to Putney parish.

The church was dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, the namesake of one of Mr Taylor's daughters, on Saturday 5 October 1912 by Bishop Hook.

They also removed the large full immersion Baptist font which was located in the middle of the nave, brought in electric lights, heating and new oak pews, and trimmed the ivy.

Much of this work was paid for by our generous benefactor Seth Taylor, whose family continued to support the parish after his death in 1917.

This fell within a larger movement of church-building in the interwar period, making St Margaret's one of the ‘Twenty Five’ churches of Southwark diocese, from whom it received a grant for works.

On 3 September 1939, there is a note in the Service Register for the 13th Sunday after Trinity reading “Air Raid Warning”, with the word ‘Sermon’ after Matins crossed out.

The oak work was cleaned, bleached and polished, the reredos and communion rail were picked out in gold leaf and colour and new altar furnishings were installed.

After his son was killed in the First World War the tower turned black, which is the mark found at St Margaret's.