Church Of St Mary Magdalene

CHURCH OF ST MARY MAGDALENE

A brick church with tiled roof on High Street, combining a 15th-century tower with an 18th-century body and 19th-century extensions.

The tower is the oldest part of the church, dating to the 15th century. The chapel to which it was attached was entirely rebuilt around 1785 and was further extended in 1845-6 by surveyor William Fry, when the west ends of the aisles were rebuilt in brick to match the tower and the interior was fitted with north, south and west galleries. The church was restored in 1950 to designs by G S Amos. In the 1950s the church was linked to the adjacent Church House to the south. It was repaired again by Laurence King in 1974-5, when it was stripped of many of its furnishings, and was renovated as a multi-use space around 2006-7.

The exterior features a 15th-century west tower with a moulded west door set in a square frame. The spandrels contain contemporary Spanish blue and white tiles. The west window is of two lights with cusped brick tracery and a clock on a projecting open bracket above. Pairs of uncusped lights appear in each face of the upper stage below a pinnacled, crow-stepped parapet set on a band of trefoiled arches. The west ends of the north and south aisles were extended alongside the tower around 1845 to form staircases, with parapets copying the tower and 15th-century-style windows. The upper stage of the tower is abutted to north and south by the pitched roof of the 1780s rebuilding, creating a pedimented effect to the west end. The 18th-century nave is of brick with Georgian-style windows with arched heads at upper and lower level, except in the apses which have only one set of arched windows. Pilaster buttresses appear on the corners.

The plan consists of a wide nave with shallow bowed north and east apses, a west tower flanked by lower north and south staircases, and galleries on north, south and west.

The interior is a plain preaching box with plastered and painted walls. A string course forms a cornice in the apses and links the heads of the upper windows. The galleries stand on slender cast-iron columns. The altar stands in the east apse. Toilets and a kitchen were added in the early 21st century, by which time all remaining liturgical fittings save the altar had been removed.

The principal fixtures include turned altar rails in the east apse and a reredos with pilasters, entablature and riddel posts in the north apse, erected as a monument to Reverend W S Smith (incumbent 1928-52).

The chapel of St Mary Magdalene was built as a chantry chapel probably in the 14th century and subsequently rebuilt or extended in the 15th century, when the present tower was built. At the Reformation it was sold with other chantry property and came into the possession of the inhabitants of Billericay, but remained a chapel of ease dependent on Great Burstead until 1844. By the late 18th century the old chapel had become too small for the growing population of the town and was rebuilt in contemporary style while retaining the medieval tower, following a collection made in 1784-5. It became independent in 1844, and the following year the interior was provided with additional galleries for more seating, accessed via staircases at the west ends. The orientation, formerly facing north, was turned eastwards in line with new liturgical fashions. It was stripped of many liturgical furnishings in the 1970s, when the pulpit and choir stalls were removed and the altar moved forward. The church went out of regular liturgical use in 1992 when the new Church of Emmanuel was opened; it was stripped of its pews and provided with flexible seating and new kitchen and toilet facilities as a multi-use space.