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St Mary Magdalene Church |
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Architecture |
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The parish was founded in 1865, as a “church plant” from All Saints, Margaret Street, in a densely-packed slum district, by Fr Richard Temple West, who was then a Curate at Margaret Street. The architect was George Edmund Street, a member of the Margaret Street congregation, and then at the height of his powers. Building started in 1867, and was complete in 1872, but a fire destroyed the brand new roof and the reconstruction took a year, so the first Mass in the new building was on St. Mary Magdalene’s Day 1873. The church was consecrated on 21st October 1878, after the decorations were finished.
Street’s design was dictated by the site, sloping steeply from north to south and also from west to east at the back and slightly from east to west at the front, and hemmed in by terraced housing. The church is immensely high, with a needle spire, which rose above the rooftops. Clerestory windows ensured that it was light. The irregular west end abutted existing buildings, and the church occupies every inch of the available site, except for a sunken area to access the vestries. The Building Act forbade building above a certain height right up against a pavement, but allowed it five feet back, so on the north side Street built a “false” aisle, five feet wide, with the arcade carrying the church to its full height. On the south side there is a normal, wide aisle. Under the church, to provide a level platform, is a massive crypt, including vestries at the east end. Street’s artistry was to provide a double arcade to the north aisle which takes the eye away from the proximity of the outside wall and conceals a slight curve in it. He was building the Royal Courts of Justice at the same time, and there is more than a passing resemblance between St. Mary Mag’s and the Great Hall there (also a solution to a sloping site). The decorative scheme of the church is Street’s, executed by some of the leading ecclesiastical artists of the day. The windows are all by Henry Holiday and repay careful study.
Twenty years after the building of the church, Ninian Comper was commissioned to produce a fitting memorial to Fr. West, and created the Chapel of St Sepulchre in the south aisle of the crypt, his first work in London. This involved altering the crypt windows (which come up to street level on the south side) and putting in new stairs. The Chapel is a chantry chapel translated from fifteenth century Germany, with every detail perfectly designed by Comper in an elaborate scheme based on the idea of St. Mary Magdalene, the penitent, becoming the first witness of the resurrection. Comper in later years came to see this work as mechanical reproduction, but it produces an exquisite effect, with a blue vault spangled with stars and a reredos crammed with figures glittering with burnished gold. The reredos contains a concealed tabernacle (possibly the first to be installed on a Church of England altar) which took the place of Comper’s favoured hanging pyx for fear of protestant rioters. The Chapel has always
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The History of the Building |
