Parish Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene, Torquay

This is a parish church built between 1843 and 1849 to the designs of A Salvin, with Jacob Harvey as contractor. The building was altered and partly refitted under G G Scott in 1881–2, with further embellishment in 1906 and 1927 funded by the Luxmore family. It is constructed of local grey limestone rubble with Bathstone dressings and has a slate roof.

The church follows an Early English style plan, comprising a nave, chancel with polygonal apse, five-bay north and south arcades, north-east and south-east transepts, and a south-east tower.

The south elevation (show front) displays a buttressed five-bay aisle with lancet windows. The nave clerestory features paired lancet windows to each bay, flanked by blind recesses, all decorated with arcading. Buttressed transepts contain lancet windows. A gabled porch is positioned in the second bay from the west, with a two-centred moulded outer doorway flanked by shafts with bell capitals, leading to a two-leaf door with blind traceried panels below an arched fanlight.

The projecting three-stage tower, with a two-stage south-east stair turret, has angle buttresses and blind arcading to the second stage. The belfry stage contains triple windows, and a clock sits in a stone frame on the south face. The buttresses terminate in crocketed spirelets with two tiers of blind arcading. The five-sided apse is furnished with lancet windows having moulded architraves and dripmoulds. Pairs of side windows to the chancel are two-light with Y tracery. The west end of the nave is buttressed with large finials and features a two-centred moulded west doorway with shafts below a tall Early English arcade with alternating blank and glazed openings. A roundel window in the gable contains four trefoils. Single lancet windows light the west ends of the aisles.

The interior presents Salvin's relatively plain work set against lavish late Victorian and early 20th-century fittings. A double-chamfered chancel arch separates the nave from the chancel. The arcades have cylindrical columns with moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. The arch-braced nave roof sits on carved corbels with two tiers of purlins and slender wind braces to each tier. Open lean-to timber aisle roofs occupy the main bays, with the eastern bays separately roofed. The west end is slightly recessed behind a superordinate arch to windows, with a narrow west end gallery positioned above a quatrefoil-pierced west end stone screen. The chancel roof is coved below the wall-plate.

North and south transepts are screened off with marble and stone traceried screens. The organ chamber screen to the south is earlier with an iron grille above. A chapel screen to the north, dating from 1905, bows out as a stone sounding board with carved vaulting and statues, adjoining a stone drum pulpit by Temple Moore (Ellis) with statue niches on a marble base.

The nave contains a set of poppyhead bench ends and a small octagonal font with an arcaded stem and shallow carvings on the bowl. The chancel fittings are sumptuous, representing two phases: G G Scott's work and early 20th-century additions. Some repainting dates to the 20th century. The roof coving is painted and sits below a brattished fascia carved with angels. Deep painted timber brackets, also carved with angels, support the coving. Beneath each bracket stands a set of six large stone statues on corbels, each with stone traceried canopies above. The sanctuary wall is lined with marble, incorporating a bishops throne and sedilia.

A massive reredos, flanked by stone traceried screen walls modelled on the Perpendicular Totnes screen and crowned with statues under vaulted stone canopies, dominates the chancel. The reredos is two-phased: the lower tier, from Scott's period, has a moulded marble frame containing alabaster relief scenes under canopies. The upper tier rises to the roof and consists of three buttressed bays of open masonry with statue niches, the central figure almost life-sized beneath a canopy with a crocketed spire. Choir stalls have crocketed carved ends; rear stalls are marble below friezes of carved stone panels with figures in classical style beneath ogee-headed canopies. A brass sanctuary rail and marble chancel screen with blind traceried panels complete the fittings.

An extraordinary north-east chapel, dating to circa 1927, is dominated by a massive painting of Salvator Mundi in a timber traceried frame by T Mostyn (Pevsner), with a massive timber altar flanked by a fine pair of large sculpted, gilded timber angels.

Stained glass includes apse windows from the 1860s (now concealed by the reredos) and a west window by Wailes (Pevsner). An excellent collection of 19th-century prints and photographs inside the church illustrates its development and its incumbents and patrons. This collection includes a photograph of the tower before its completion.