Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene, Reigate

The medieval church of St Mary Magdalene is of various periods. The arcades date from around 1200 to the 14th century, the south chancel chapel is also 14th century, and the rest is mainly 15th century with a late 13th century north aisle west window. A north vestry was added in 1513. The church underwent very extensive restoration in the 19th century. The first major restoration was in 1845 when Henry Woodyer renewed much of the stonework including the sedilia and piscina in the chancel, fitted new stained glass and restored the mutilated rood-screen. Between 1874 and 1877 George Gilbert Scott Junior was responsible for new roofs, repairing the north arcade, rebuilding the south arcade stone by stone, refacing the tower and providing it with a new top, providing a new east window, a reredos made by Farmer and Brindley, decorations by Burlison and Grylls, new seating, and other repairs.

The church is built of local coursed stone with Bath stone for the facing of the tower. Horsham slates cover the roof on the south side, with reconstituted stone slates on the north. The plan comprises a nave, aisles, west tower, chancel, north and south chancel chapels slightly shorter than the chancel, north vestries and organ chamber, south porch, and a kitchen to the north of the tower.

Externally, the dominant features are Perpendicular in style, particularly the three-light panel-tracery windows in the south aisle, the two-light windows with depressed heads in the north aisle and the tower with narrow two-light belfry windows. The tower has angle buttresses, an embattled parapet and a northwest stair-turret which rises above the battlements. The rest of the church has plain eaves and no parapets, and there is no clerestory. The east end is the most striking elevation with elaborate windows in the style of around 1300 in the east walls of the chancel (five lights) and its two aisles (three lights each). The nave, south aisle and the two chancel aisles are under their own gables whereas the north aisle has a lean-to roof which forms a continuation of the north slope of the nave but at a shallower angle.

Internally, the arcades form the most important and oldest part of the present fabric. The piers are not aligned and have a different rhythm between north and south. The earliest work is found at the southwest end and appears to have been built under the influence of the newly-completed work at Canterbury Cathedral choir of 1175-80. The piers vary in shape with round, octagonal and quatrefoil forms all in evidence and with a wide variety of foliage decoration which demonstrates the transition from Norman to 13th century work. The north arcade has double-chamfered pointed arches whereas the south one has moulded arches. The north arcade is slightly later than the south one. The nave seems to have been extended eastwards in the early 14th century with the break in the two schemes evident in the foliage of the easternmost south pier where the west half represents the original respond and the east part belongs to the extension. On the north the two easternmost arches are 14th century. The Perpendicular work, so evident externally, is found in the tower arch with three orders of shafts and the two-bay chancel arcades with their typical piers of four shafts and four hollows. On the second floor of the vestry of 1513 is the Cranston Library.

A late medieval but much restored screen of one-light openings stretches across the entrance to the chancel and its side chapels. The piscina and sedilia are 14th century work, reworked in the 19th century. There is an extensive collection of 17th and 18th century monuments. The largest and most impressive is that to Richard Labroke (died 1730) in the north transept, signed by Joseph Rose the Elder, a three-part composition with Justice and Truth flanking the deceased who is in Roman dress; below is a powerful relief of disarticulated skulls and bones. Sir Richard Elyot (died 1608) and his son (also Richard, died 1612) are depicted one above the other in a two-tier monument, the former reclining, the other lying on his back at prayer. This monument has been rearranged. The kneeling figure of Katherine Elyot (died 1623), sister of Richard, has been moved to the arched recess of the sedilia on the south side of the chapel at some stage. There is a stone reredos with the Apostles under crocketed gables which reflect the style of the medieval sedilia and piscina.

An attractive timber lych-gate of 1908 with a stone base and a tiled gambrel roof stands at the entrance.

The standing fabric shows the church was in existence by around 1200 but it probably had earlier origins. In the 12th century it was presented to the Augustinian priory of Southwark. In 1701 the Cranston Library was founded in the small chamber over the vicar's vestry by the Reverend Andrew Cranston, vicar from 1697 to 1708. It is said in the church guidebook to be the first public library in England and has over 2,400 volumes. The main 19th century restorations were undertaken by two leading architects. The first in 1845 was by Henry Woodyer (1815-96), a gentleman-architect who had considerable private means and based himself at Grafham in Surrey. Woodyer was a pupil of the great church architect William Butterfield and established a strong reputation for his church work, with the greatest concentration of his work in Surrey and the adjacent counties. His masterpiece is often considered to be Dorking parish church. George Gilbert Scott Junior (1839-97) was the eldest son of Sir George Gilbert Scott. He commenced practice with his father in 1863. By the 1870s he was a leading church architect in his own right and one of the key figures in the development of the Gothic Revival, helping to steer it away from the florid exuberance characteristic of the mid-Victorian years. Mental instability cut short a brilliant career and he produced little architecture after the early 1880s. The restoration work at St Mary Magdalene is often criticised for its severity. Wholesale renewal of medieval fabric was common in the 1840s when the form of medieval work was considered important rather than preserving the ancient fabric itself. Scott's careful rebuilding of the south arcade is more typical of the later Victorian attitudes to conservation, so his refacing the tower with a type of stone from far afield is somewhat surprising.