Church Of St Mary Magdalene

Church of St Mary Magdalene

This is a parish church with origins in the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations through the 13th, 14th, and possibly early 17th centuries, along with 18th-century work. The building was substantially restored in the late 19th century, with a mid-20th-century vestry added later.

The church is constructed from random rubble stone with larger quoins and ashlar buttresses. The north and east walls are rendered. The roof is laid with stone slate, though the north slope of the nave is covered with a band of concrete tiles, and concrete tiles cover the vestry.

The building comprises a nave with a west tower, south porch, chancel, and vestry, presenting a long, low profile. The south facade features a two-stage tower with a heavy chamfered plinth at ground level, a single lancet window, and another trefoil-headed lancet offset above the nave roof level. A sundial dated 1719 sits to the right of the lower lancet. The tower is topped with a pyramid roof and iron finial. The west wall of the nave has a slight raised plinth, a rectangular window with leaded lights under the eaves, and below this a two-light window with trefoil heads and sunk spandrels. A blocked doorway with a visible jamb and part of its head lies nearby.

The single-storey south porch has oversailing stone eaves and a semi-circular head with a hollow chamfer to the gable opening. Open-work painted wooden gates occupy the entrance. The parapet gable bears a cross-gablet apex with a stone cross. To the right of the porch is a two-light window with reticulated tracery and a hoodmould. An oversailing stone eaves course runs to the right of the porch, and a second parapet gable, also with a cross-gablet apex and stone cross, marks the nave.

The chancel is set back slightly and features reticulated tracery in all its windows. These include a two-light window and a six-flush-panel door with stone arched heads. The east end has a two-light window with a hoodmould and hollow square stops, with two courses of exposed ashlar below. A floriate cross crowns the cross-gablet apex of the east parapet gable, though the top arm is missing. On the north side, a two-light window sits behind a deep chamfer.

The north side of the nave displays five buttresses spaced between windows or just short of the west end, most with swept offsets except the second, which is plain. A two-light reticulated tracery window and a wide single-light window with a trefoil head and sunk spandrels are visible. The vestry, positioned between two buttresses with a lean-to roof, has a tripartite window on its left return fitted with mid-20th-century metal casements. To the right of the vestry is a lancet with a semi-circular head.

The west tower mirrors the south tower but with a trefoil-headed bottom lancet featuring double chamfer and flat head. The belfry window has louvres. The west wall of the nave replicates the south wall's plinth and includes ashlar to the bottom of the wall above, with an iron bench-mark visible. A trefoil-headed lancet appears in the top lower stage, offset, with the belfry window matching that on the north facade.

Interior: The porch contains stone benches on each side and a boarded door with cover strips forming Y tracery beneath an arched head. A holy water stoup stands to the right.

The nave has a collar rafter roof incorporating reused timber. The floor is laid with stone paving. Walls are unplastered. Semi-circular arches span the south porch door, the north vestry door opposite, and a blocked doorway to the west of the porch incorporating a stone with a semi-circular arch cut through it. A wide offset at the eaves level of the west wall has a relieving arch to a door below. A wide, nearly semi-circular chancel arch separates the nave from the chancel.

The chancel features a collar rafter roof with straight braces and irregularly-spaced tie-beams unconnected with trusses; some beams are moulded, others plain chamfered. Some moulded. The floor is stone-paved and the walls are plastered with a panelled dado to the east wall. The rafter roof is a late 19th-century version of the nave pattern.

Notable internal furnishings include a semi-octagonal stone pulpit dated 1878, made by J. & S. Waldy, featuring a clustered stem with foliate capital, blind arcading to the sides over floral diaper work, marble colonnettes, and cusped hoodmoulds. An octagonal stone font, probably of the late 15th or early 16th century, has blind arcading to its stem and a leaf cross to the sides of its bowl.

Monuments include a 1729 Buckle monument in the chancel with cherub and gadrooning below, three Leech floor slabs, four late 18th and 19th-century Arkell wall monuments, all in the chancel, and a 1707 Buckle monument in the nave with cherubs' heads below and palm scrolls to the sides.

A western gallery, probably inserted in the 18th century, was removed during the church's restoration in the 1870s.