Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene

Church, designed by John Norton and completed in 1860, with the steeple added in 1872 and the south chapel in 1883. The building is constructed of snecked Pennant rubble with red sandstone banding and limestone dressings, topped with a tile roof.

The church follows an Early Pointed Gothic Revival style and comprises an aisled nave, north transept, south chapel, apsidal chancel and a southwest tower. The apse features trefoil lancets with linked, stilted hoods, and a red ashlar sill band that rises around the arch between buttresses. A low north vestry contains three lancets, an organ chamber with a trefoil-headed door and eaves stack, and two lancets and a shouldered arch door serving the south chapel. The organ chamber's north gable displays a two-light plate tracery window, while the adjoining north transept gable has a pierced rose window. The six-bay north aisle contains plate tracery two-light windows between buttresses, with a seven-bay clerestory of paired lancets above.

The tall south chapel gable has clasping buttresses and three tall lancets beneath a round window with a quatrefoil forming a cross. The south aisle and clerestory echo the north elevation's design. The four-stage gabled tower is divided by red bands with wide clasping buttresses extending nearly to its top. The south door displays a moulded, shouldered arch and a triptych of the Crucifixion in the tympanum within an arch of two orders on marble shafts. Inside the porch, a doorway features two orders separated by dogtooth moulding, with rear arches to the windows. The second and third stages contain narrow lancets, while paired belfry lancets of two orders have shafts separated by dogtooth moulding. Clock faces appear on the gables. A stiff leaf cornice with gargoyles at the corners rises below tall, crocketed, octagonal pinnacles with corner shafts, supporting a steep tiled spire.

A narthex projects at the west end with an arcade of trefoil arches featuring animal head stops and a parapet of trefoil panels. Doors at each end have stiff leaf capitals. Deep angle buttresses frame a plate tracery window of two paired lancets within pointed arches and an octofoil. Below the apex is a blind arcade of five trefoil-headed arches with a central narrow light. The aisles have single lancets.

Interior features include a painted roof with detached shafts and stencilling around the base of the chancel roof. The reredos comprises a central arched niche with Last Supper figures and flanking trefoil arcades containing three sedilia and three arched niches to the north. Windows have trefoil-headed rear arches with foliate capitals and banded shafts painted black, with triple vault shafts in the angles supporting a three-bay arch-braced roof. Two arches to the south have marble shafts, moulded capitals, and corbels with three shafts to the roof. The south chapel employs arch-braced collars, chamfered and stopped. A tall chancel arch has its inner of two orders borne on foliate corbels, with a marble dwarf wall at its base. The five-bay nave arcade features piers with four attached shafts, deeply carved foliate capitals and canopied hood stops on the north side, with west responds on head and shoulder figure corbels. Between the clerestory windows are deep, moulded corbels with shafts to the roof. Two-light rear arches serve the aisle windows, while the west window has two orders.

Original fittings probably include a brass altar rail, choir stalls and pews, an octagonal pulpit with brass hand rail, a brass eagle lectern, and an octagonal font on marble shafts. An open Perpendicular screen serves the chapel, which has an altar screen with angels to octagonal shafts.