Church Of St Mary Magdalen

GILLINGHAM

TQ76NE CHURCH STREET, Gillingham Green 686-1/7/60 (East side) 24/02/50 Church of St Mary Magdalen

GV II*

Church. Early C13 chancel and side chapels, nave rebuilt C15, C15 aisles and tower, restored 1868-9 by AW Blomfield. MATERIALS: flint, brick and limestone rubble with limestone dressings, partly rendered, ragstone ashlar tower and a tiled roof. STYLE: Decorated Gothic style chancel and flanking chapels, Perpendicular Gothic nave and tower. PLAN: chancel, N and S chapels, aisled nave and W tower. EXTERIOR: coped E gable largely rebuilt mid C19 has flanking buttresses and a mid C19 5-light Decorated tracery window; the S side has a low ogee-arched mid C14 window partly obscured by the E gable of the S chapel, which has a small arch over it. N chapel has a steep E gable with eaves, some render, and a 3-light Perpendicular window, 2-bay N side with buttresses and 2-light Decorated windows; in front is a late C19 single storey crenellated vestry with a flat-headed window and N door. Nave and aisle have cornice and crenellated parapet, with a shallow N gable raised above chancel. 4-bay N elevation has flat-headed 2-light clerestory windows, the aisle has 2-light windows as the side of the chapel. 2-stage tower has angle buttresses to the lower stage, strings between stages and to a crenellated parapet, and regular putlog holes to each face; 2-light W door, with a small niche over, and a flat-headed 2-light window above and to the belfry, as the clerestory. A round SE corner stair tower has a conical roof and finial and a 2-light door at the bottom. S side as the N, with a central mid C19 coped, gabled porch with a 2-centre arched doorway with attached columns and moulded surround. SE chapel has gables each end with eaves, and a 3-light E window with head hood mould stops; S side has two 2-light windows and a flat-headed doorway with a 4-centre arched door to the E, and an E gable with a mid C19 3-light window with Perpendicular tracery and head stops. INTERIOR: not inspected, but noted as having c1200 2-bay arcade between chancel and side chapels with scallops and leafs to the capitals, and keeled roll to W arches, fine Decorated Gothic sedilia with 3 cinquefoil ogee arches with hood mould and stiff leaf capitals. A Perpendicular oak screen

with brattishing and open tracery in segmental-arched panels. C15 4-bay nave arcade has round shafts and octagonal capitals with central rectangular shafts with moulded corners, responds each end, with a shallow roof with arched braces on corbels. Tower has a tierceron rib vault on corner shafts. FITTINGS: 3-sided W gallery on thin posts and turned balusters, C11 Norman font, with 16-arch arcade on shafts and zig zag moulding. STAINED GLASS: E window by Holiday for Heaton, Butler and Bayne. MEMORIALS: various wall memorials. (BoE: Pevsner N & Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London: 1976-: 290).

Listing NGR: TQ7820868837