Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene

This parish church dates from the early to mid-14th century with 16th-century alterations and was restored in 1869 by F.B. Osborn of Birmingham. It is built of random rubble with freestone dressings, and has Swithland slate roofs with stone coped verges.

The building comprises a west tower, a 4-bay nave with a south aisle and north and south porches, and a 3-bay chancel.

The west tower has three stages with offsets and diagonal buttresses to the western corners and square-set buttresses at the eastern corners, all surmounted by panelled and crocketed pinnacles set diagonally to their respective buttresses. It has a crenellated parapet with continuous moulded coping and a recessed octagonal tower with crocketed angles and two tiers of lucarnes. The pointed west window has a concave quarter-round-moulded surround and an ogee-moulded hood ending in carved heads; it displays two lights with flowing tracery incorporating an ogival heart-shaped motif. The belfry lights have cusped Y-tracery beneath 4-centred arches and are probably late 14th century.

The south front of the nave and aisle contains a square-headed window at the west end with two lights showing truncated reticulations above. The other two windows on this side also have two lights with reticulated tracery beneath 2-centred arches, all with hood moulds ending in head-stops. Four 16th-century clerestory windows of two trefoil-headed lights beneath 4-centred arches have concave half-round-moulded surrounds.

The 19th-century south porch has a pointed opening on one order of shafts with stiff leaf capitals and a roll and fillet moulded arch. It features diagonal corner buttresses and a crenellated parapet with continuous coping and hollow chamfered string. In the east wall of the aisle is a 16th-century window of three trefoil-headed lights beneath a 3-centred arch, with another clerestory window above. Similar 16th-century windows, but transomed, appear on the north side of the nave. The north porch matches the south porch.

The chancel contains one 15th-century south window of three trefoil-headed lights with perpendicular tracery beneath a square head. The 14th-century east window has four trefoil-headed lights and flowing tracery containing an ogival heart-shaped motif, with a hood mould ending in head-stops. The north windows are 19th-century restorations.

Internally, a 14th-century four-bay south arcade displays double-chamfered pointed arches on octagonal columns with moulded capitals and bases. The tower arch has an outer chamfered surround and an inner chamfered arch springing from corbels with carved heads. The chancel arch sits on engaged semi-octagonal columns with moulded capitals. A 19th-century king-post roof spans the nave, and a 19th-century braced collar roof covers the chancel.

The church contains a notable collection of fixtures and fittings. A 12th-century font has a cylindrical pedestal and basin decorated with a pattern of concentric lozenges. Above the tower arch hangs a hatchment depicting the arms of Queen Victoria, presented to the church in 1863. Incorporated into the west wall of the south aisle is the side of a 16th-century alabaster chest tomb with an arcade containing figures, beneath which sits the medieval parish chest with a lid made of a single piece of wood. At the east end of the aisle is a piscina with an ogee head, indicating that this part of the aisle was once a chapel. A 19th-century hexagonal stone pulpit with traceried sides stands in the nave. The chancel contains a piscina with a dog-tooth surround, apparently dating from the 13th century.

The monuments include an early 14th-century tomb recess in the south wall of the chancel with an ogee arch surmounted by a cross and two orders of convex quarter-round mouldings. At floor level on each side, the mouldings terminate in trefoil-headed panels containing carved figures. Within the recess is the effigy of a civilian with hands raised in prayer. A near identical recess on the north side of the chancel contains the effigy of a knight wearing chain armour including a coif de mailles and a belted surcoat reaching to the knees, with his legs crossed. Next to him but outside the recess is the effigy of a lady with a wimple headdress. On the north wall of the chancel is the incised top from an early 16th-century chest tomb showing a knight in full plate armour flanked by two ladies. Tablets commemorate the Reverend William Wood, who died in 1814, and Robert Chesser, who died in 1831; the latter features a carved picture of a graveyard with a portrait medallion above.

The stained glass includes two small panels of 14th-century fragments in the chancel southeast, including a nun and a St. Michael. The east window, dating from 1894, is by Kempe.