Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene, St Leonards

This is a large and imposing church built in 1852 by Frederick Marrable, with a southwest tower added in 1872. It occupies a prominent position in St Leonards, positioned on high ground overlooking Warrior Square. The church is constructed in the Decorated style from semi-coursed, semi-dressed local rubble with limestone dressings and has slate roofs.

The building comprises a nave, lower chancel with north and south aisles, a southeast tower, vestries to the north, and a north porch. Its dominant exterior feature is the four-stage southwest tower, which rises prominently from the site. The tower has angle buttresses rising to the base of the belfry stage and an embattled octagonal stair turret that projects above the plain parapet. The south face contains a large arched entrance with a moulded head and nook shafts, which originally led to a porch within the tower base. The second and third stages have single-light windows, while the belfry stage displays paired lancets with trefoils in their heads.

The west front, facing Church Road, features a fine five-light window with a large traceried wheel in its head, and a traceried oculus in the gable above. The lean-to aisles are divided into bays by buttresses with offsets, each containing a two-light window with flowing tracery of varying patterns. The east end has a five-light window with rich tracery combining Geometrical and flowing elements. The nave is lit by a clerestory with two-light reticulated windows.

The interior walls are lined with limestone ashlar. Between the nave and aisles are five-bay arcades with quatrefoil piers on high bases, rolls between lobes, moulded capitals, and arches with multiple mouldings. The chancel arch has a multiple-moulded head and engaged shafts with shaft rings. The first floor of the tower contains two now-blocked arches that probably originally housed an organ. The nave roof is four-sided with panels divided by moulded ribs, with arch-braced main trusses springing from stone wall-shafts. The aisles have lean-to roofs with arch-braced main trusses. The chancel roof is a single-hammerbeam design.

The church now serves the Greek Orthodox community (taken over in 1983) and contains an iconostasis installed in 1983 bearing images of saints. Several fittings from the original 1852 building survive. In the former sanctuary is a fine stone-carved reredos with a centrepiece depicting the Last Supper. Nearly in the south wall are triple sedilia and a piscina with crocketted, ogee arches over each division. The pulpit has ogee heads to each of its recessed panels. The font is octagonal with carved sinks on each face. The pews, likely original to the 1852 building, have shaped ends with small rounded elbows; tip-up seats were added at a later stage to increase accommodation. An unusual bank of raised seating stands at the west end of the nave. The church contains extensive stained glass throughout, notably including a window of 1882 by Morris and Company in the south aisle depicting St Mary and St Elizabeth.

To the northwest is a plain brick hall of 1935.

The church resulted from applications to the Incorporated Church Building Society by June 1850, as the existing Anglican provision—a chapel erected in 1831 at private expense—had become inadequate as Bexhill grew. The initiative was further prompted by the recent construction of a Roman Catholic establishment. The site was granted by Charles Gilbert Eversfield, lord of the manor of Denne Park. The vicar subscribed £400 towards the cost and the bishop of Chichester £200. The building was planned to accommodate 822 people (340 appropriated seats, 346 free seats, 110 children, and 26 seats in the chancel). The southwest tower was delayed for twenty years, likely due to cost; a design for a tall spire exists but was never executed.

Frederick Marrable (1818-72), the architect, was articled to Edward Blore in 1835 and became best known as the first superintending architect to the Metropolitan Board of Works, a position he held from 1856 (the year he became a fellow of the RIBA) to 1862. He designed the Board's offices in Spring Gardens, which became the first County Hall for the Metropolitan Board of Works' successor, the London County Council. He was also an associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers and died suddenly of heart disease aged 54.