St Margaret’s Church has been continuously used for worship for over 700 years.  It is first mentioned in records in 1291 but the present building dates from the early 1300s when the church was rebuilt.   Parts of this building still remain; some of the windows in the south wall and roof timbers in the nave date from this time.  The picturesque porch with its distinctive herring-bone brickwork was added in about 1600.  The tower was rebuilt in 1700 and the magnificent peal of 6 bells, now reputedly the oldest complete peal in Surrey, were cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and hung a year later in 1701. In 1873, the church underwent major restoration and enlargement with the addition of a north aisle, vestry, organ and extended chancel. 

The list of Rectors goes back to 1308.  One of the most notable was the Rev Henry Whitfield who in 1639, during the troubled religious times of Charles 1, led a party of puritans from Ockley and other parts of England to the New World.  Their settlement became Guilford, Connecticut.  Henry Whitfield’s house is the oldest surviving building in Connecticut and is now a State Museum devoted to the history of those early settlers.