Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene, Baunton

Anglican parish church of the 12th century with Perpendicular additions, restored in 1876. The building comprises a small 12th-century nave with a projecting 15th-century porch, a 12th-century chancel with a 19th-century vestry attached at right angles to the north, and a projecting lean-to stair turret on the north side of the nave (formerly providing access to the rood screen).

The nave is constructed of limestone rubble with dressed stone quoins and an ashlar parapet. The south wall contains one Perpendicular hollow-chamfered stone-mullioned window with cinquefoil-headed lights. To the right is an oval memorial plaque, probably of the 18th century, with an almost illegible inscription. A studded plank door to the left, set within the porch, features a Tudor closing ring, escutcheon and hinges within a hollow-moulded Tudor-arched surround. The west end of the nave has 19th-century buttressing. The west window is Decorated in style with two cinquefoil-headed lights and a hood. The north wall displays a restored Early English two-light window with plate tracery and hood. The 15th-century parapet features a moulded string and roll-moulded coping.

The chancel is built of coursed squared and dressed limestone. Both the south and north walls contain single 19th-century two-light pointed windows with cinquefoil-headed lights and hoods. There is no east window. A gabled bell-hanging for two bells is positioned at the west gable end of the nave, with stepped gable-end coping and three upright stone cross finials.

The porch is Perpendicular in style with a gabled end and pointed-arched entrance featuring hollow and flat-chamfered mouldings and a hood. Stone bench seats are provided within the porch. A small square niche is present in the west wall.

Two 18th-century ledgers are set in the stone flag floor, the best preserved being to Henry Stephens (died 1728) and his wife Elizabeth (died 1723).

Interior

The interior has been scraped and comprises a three-bay nave and three-bay chancel. The roof trusses of the chancel date from the 19th to early 20th century and incorporate arch-braced collar beams with king posts and curved struts. The nave trusses, also of this period, have braced tie beams with king posts and curving struts. Red tile and plank flooring covers the nave, whilst the chancel is laid with encaustic tiling.

Two flat-chamfered four-centred arched doorways, one above the other and now blocked, are set in the north wall close to the junction of the nave and chancel. These formerly gave access to a Perpendicular rood screen.

A trefoil-headed piscina is located in the north wall of the chancel. An early and mutilated trefoil-headed piscina with credence shelf stands in the south-east corner of the chancel, and a 19th-century piscina occupies the north wall of the chancel.

The fixtures and fittings include a polygonal stone font (probably 16th century) resting on a 12th-century cylindrical font, positioned inside the south door. A wooden pulpit incorporates 17th-century carved oak panels including four pierced arcaded panels. Early 20th-century pews are present throughout, with 20th-century wooden communion rails.

The most significant interior feature is a fine 14th-century wall painting of St Christopher, approximately three metres wide by four metres high, on the nave north wall. St Christopher is depicted wading through a stream, with a hermit bearing a lantern and church on the east bank, a seated female figure on the west, and a landscape of trees, churches and a windmill at the top.

Part of the former Perpendicular rood screen, featuring tracery and linen-fold panelling, has been incorporated into the reredos. A complete 15th-century embroidered altar frontal is preserved in a frame east of the south doorway, composed of alternating strips of red and yellow silk embroidered with seventeen double-headed eagles in silver thread. At the centre is a representation of the crucifixion with St Mary and St John, below which is a rebus of a name comprising a golden eagle gripping a white ass above a golden barrel from which issue two flowering branches.