Church Of St Mary Magdalene

TQ 2581 NE CITY OF WESTMINSTER ROWINGTON CLOSE, W2 39/1 (north side) 25.9.51 Church of St Mary Magdalene (formerly listed under Woodchester Street) GV I Church. 1867-78. By G E Street. Crypt Chapel of St Sepulchre 1895 by Sir Ninian Comper. Red brick with ashlar spire, dressings and banding. Welsh slate roof. High Victorian Gothic. Misorientation and unusual plan dictated by site. (Description refers to liturgical rather than compass east). 6-bay nave with south aisle and quasi aisle to north, south-west porch, south transept, apsidal chancel and tower with spire to east of transept. Nave: lancets with trefoil heads, continuous sill band and hoodmould. To clerestory, 3-light windows under continuous hoodmould. South transept gable-ended with gabled porch, trefoil niche above doorway containing relief carving representing Noli Me Tangere. Rose window above. 5-stage tower with tall bell stage with ashlar banding. Staircase turret. Spire with lucarnes. Chancel has 3-light windows with intersecting tracery, to apse 2-light windows with Y tracery and Geometrical tracery to east window. Continuous sill and hoodmould. Ashlar banding to jambs. Interior: west wall arcaded with roundels in spandrels. Ashlar banding to upper wall. 2 2-light windows with Geometrical tracery with a roundel above, grouped under a hoodmould. South arcade: clustered columns on waterholding bases with moulded capitals, pointed arcade of 2 orders with dogtooth moulding. Similar arcade to north wall, except octagonal,piers, intermediate slender columns to each bay support paired narrow arches with roundel above. Relief roundels to west and north walls represent the Stations of The Cross. To spandrels of north and south arcades canopies containing statues. Aisle walls below windows have decorative marble inlay and encaustic tiles. Clerestory: 3-light windows with intersecting tracery in 2 layers, the outer glazed and the inner supported on freestanding coloured marble shafts. Pointed barrel vault with painted scheme by Daniel Bell. Chancel arch on dark marble shafts on stiff-leaf corbels. East end arrangements raised to present level in 1920s. Diaperwork to walls set with hexagonal mosaic panels by Salviati of Venice. Alabaster panelling above. Shafted windows and dark marble shafts to rib vault. Sedilia and piscina. Reredos by Earp. Stained glass designs by Henry Holiday. Crypt Chapel: groin vaulted. Highly decorated with Perpendicular and Flamboyant tracery, original fittings including screen and altar with tester. Victorian Architecture : R Dixon and S Muthesius 1978, pp 211-212 and pl.202.

Listing NGR: TQ2573181947