Church of St Mary Magdalene is a Grade I listed building in the Huntingdonshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 May 1958. A C15 Church.

Church of St Mary Magdalene

WRENN ID
carved-finial-briar
Grade
I
Local Planning Authority
Huntingdonshire
Constituency
St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire MP: Ian Sollom (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
30 May 1958
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Mary Magdalene, Hilton
OS grid reference
TL 290 660
Coordinates
52.27789, -0.10955
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Mary Magdalene in Hilton is a Grade I listed parish church. It features a 14th-century west tower and a 15th-century chancel, nave, north and south aisles, and south porch. The building is primarily constructed of pebble rubble, with some freestone, Barnack stone, and clunch dressings.

The west tower has three stages, a plinth, diagonal buttressing, and an embattled parapet. The west doorway has moulded jambs and a two-centred arch with a moulded label. The west window consists of two cinquefoil lights topped by a quatrefoil in a two-centred head with a moulded label. There are smaller, similar windows on each face of the bell chamber wall, and fragments of an earlier church are applied to the exterior of the north and west walls of the tower.

The nave roof is covered with slate and features stone copings on the gable end parapet. The clerestory has four modern windows, while the north and south aisles contain restored windows with vertical tracery, along with 15th-century splays and sills. The south porch, also from the 15th century, has a gabled roof with a moulded stone parapet. The outer doorway features two moulded orders, and the inner doorway is carved on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The south doorway has a two-centred arch and moulded jambs.

The chancel has a plain tiled roof with stone coping on the gable end parapet and two partly restored 15th-century windows with four-centred heads in the south wall. The south doorway from the 14th century has wave moulded jambs and a two-centred head with a moulded label and lion mask stops. The east window is a partly restored 15th-century feature.

Inside, there is a 13th-century two-centred chancel arch with two hollow chamfered orders and square responds, each with a semi-octagonal attached shaft and moulded capitals. The nave arcades consist of four bays with two-centred arches, each featuring two moulded arches supported by attached half-round shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The 15th-century nave roof has four bays and five king post trusses, and there is a 15th-century font with a plain octagonal bowl, hollow splayed under edge, plain stem, and hollow chamfered base. A plaque from 1632 displaying the Prince of Wales feathers, originally from the now-demolished Park Farm in Hilton, is also present.

Local climate

Church of St Mary Magdalene sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 98% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 95% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 56% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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