Church Of St Mary Magdalene And Attached Railings

Church of St Mary Magdalene and Attached Railings, Holloway Road, Islington

An Anglican church in Neo-classical style, originally the Holloway Episcopal Church and a Chapel of Ease to the medieval church of St Mary Islington. Built between 1812 and 1814, the architect William Wickings is recorded on a tablet under the east window, with Joseph Griffiths as builder. The church became a parish church in 1894, following internal alterations in 1895 by C E Child.

The exterior is constructed of yellow brick in Flemish bond with Portland stone dressings. The roof is obscured by a very deep parapet. The plan comprises a chancel, nave, north, south and west porches, with a tower over the chancel. Gauged brick voussoirs form the arches and openings. Upper windows are round-headed while lower windows are segmental-arched; basement openings are also segmental-arched and barred.

The east end is articulated in three bays, each framed by a shallow full-height round-headed arch enclosing lower and upper windows, with the middle bay set slightly forward. A rusticated stone plinth incorporates basement windows, with stone bands dividing the storeys and an impost band above. Stone entablature and corner lamps complete the composition. The square tower over the central bay has an ashlar first stage incorporating clock faces by Handley and Moore of Clerkenwell, presumably from 1814. The second stage is of brick with round-arched recessed louvred belfry openings flanked by bracketed Ionic pilasters of stone. A modillion cornice and parapet with urns (originally Coade stone but replaced in real stone in 1910) surmount the tower. The first bay of the north and south returns continues this arrangement, but at ground floor level features curved steps up to stone porticos with paired Tuscan columns distyle in antis, supporting an entablature and blocking course. These were later enclosed with wood panels and pedimented doorways. Scrolled wrought-iron lamp brackets sit over the entrances, with iron railings to the steps.

The six-bay nave features stone bands separating storeys and at parapet level, with lead rainwater heads and downpipes. Railed steps at the centre descend to the crypt with a segmental-arched doorway. The west end is similar to the east but with a central porch featuring railed steps and double 8-panelled doors as a rear entrance. Centre and ground floor windows here are blind or blocked. The west parapet is surmounted by a gable enclosing a semi-circular lunette within a round-arched recess. The north and south sides mirror each other.

Inside, the north and south porches lead to hallways with vestries and cantilevered open-well stone staircases to galleries with iron stick balusters, lamp brackets and wreathed wooden handrails. Fanlights sit over former main doorways, with panelled dados and mutule cornices. A ringing chamber contains peal boards and a wooden ladder to the belfry. Doors at ground level lead to the interior at the northeast and southeast.

At the east end, a central shallow segmental-arched reredos recess contains two pairs of Ionic marble or marbled pilasters, each outer pilaster sunk in the reveal. The pilasters support an entablature with modillion cornice broken by a gilded dove within a sunburst. The arch to the recess acts as a segmental pediment with a soffit decorated with paterae in squares. Black panels with gilded texts display the Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments and Creed. A very shallow sanctuary bordered by later brass altar rails supported on panels of arabesque ironwork is paved with decorative encaustic tiles, with a Regency table altar.

Galleries to the north, west and south are raked and carried on Tuscan columns with plain white-painted fronts. The horseshoe-shaped gallery was altered to rectangular form by Child in 1895. At the west is an organ by George Pike England of 1814, with adaptations by Henry Willis in 1867 and N P Mander in 1947. Henry Willis served as organist here for approximately thirty years. England's mahogany case is of the four-tower type with three pipes in each tower; the central flat has five pipes and the outer pair is double-storeyed. The towers have carved pipeshades and above the console is a gilded sunburst. A Royal Coat of Arms adorns the gallery front. Original dado panelling runs throughout the church.

The ceiling is lightly moulded with a modillion cornice, coving and flat ceiling bounded by a band of guilloche work, with one large and two small roundels surrounding central roses of foliage ornament. A 19th-century watercolour shows an elaborate painted decorative scheme no longer extant; the present painted decorative scheme recovers the original Regency character. A mahogany pulpit, converted from the original three-decker, now stands at the west, square in plan with concave chamfers at the corners and resting on an arcaded base with curved stairs and later ironwork balustrade.

A marble and alabaster font in the north aisle, dated 1899, is of fine Neo-Renaissance work with a square bowl decorated with oval panels carved in shallow relief, supported by a central column and four corner Corinthian antae. Some Victorian stained glass with small-scale decorative patterning at the west and north windows is by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, post 1856. Wall monuments include the London Troops Memorial and a mosaic Art Nouveau-style War Memorial.

Beneath the church is a crypt of four parallel white-painted brick tunnel vaults, mostly converted to classrooms. The church stands in a large churchyard with many chest tombs.

Attached iron railings complete the listing.