Description

GILLINGHAM

TQ76NE CHURCH STREET, Gillingham Green
686-1/7/60 (East side)
24/02/50 Church of St Mary Magdalen

GV II*

Church. Early C13 chancel and side chapels, nave rebuilt C15,
C15 aisles and tower, restored 1868-9 by AW Blomfield.
MATERIALS: flint, brick and limestone rubble with limestone
dressings, partly rendered, ragstone ashlar tower and a tiled
roof.
STYLE: Decorated Gothic style chancel and flanking chapels,
Perpendicular Gothic nave and tower.
PLAN: chancel, N and S chapels, aisled nave and W tower.
EXTERIOR: coped E gable largely rebuilt mid C19 has flanking
buttresses and a mid C19 5-light Decorated tracery window; the
S side has a low ogee-arched mid C14 window partly obscured by
the E gable of the S chapel, which has a small arch over it.
N chapel has a steep E gable with eaves, some render, and a
3-light Perpendicular window, 2-bay N side with buttresses and
2-light Decorated windows; in front is a late C19 single
storey crenellated vestry with a flat-headed window and N
door.
Nave and aisle have cornice and crenellated parapet, with a
shallow N gable raised above chancel.
4-bay N elevation has flat-headed 2-light clerestory windows,
the aisle has 2-light windows as the side of the chapel.
2-stage tower has angle buttresses to the lower stage, strings
between stages and to a crenellated parapet, and regular
putlog holes to each face; 2-light W door, with a small niche
over, and a flat-headed 2-light window above and to the
belfry, as the clerestory. A round SE corner stair tower has a
conical roof and finial and a 2-light door at the bottom.
S side as the N, with a central mid C19 coped, gabled porch
with a 2-centre arched doorway with attached columns and
moulded surround.
SE chapel has gables each end with eaves, and a 3-light E
window with head hood mould stops; S side has two 2-light
windows and a flat-headed doorway with a 4-centre arched door
to the E, and an E gable with a mid C19 3-light window with
Perpendicular tracery and head stops.
INTERIOR: not inspected, but noted as having c1200 2-bay
arcade between chancel and side chapels with scallops and
leafs to the capitals, and keeled roll to W arches, fine
Decorated Gothic sedilia with 3 cinquefoil ogee arches with
hood mould and stiff leaf capitals. A Perpendicular oak screen

with brattishing and open tracery in segmental-arched panels.
C15 4-bay nave arcade has round shafts and octagonal capitals
with central rectangular shafts with moulded corners, responds
each end, with a shallow roof with arched braces on corbels.
Tower has a tierceron rib vault on corner shafts.
FITTINGS: 3-sided W gallery on thin posts and turned
balusters, C11 Norman font, with 16-arch arcade on shafts and
zig zag moulding.
STAINED GLASS: E window by Holiday for Heaton, Butler and
Bayne.
MEMORIALS: various wall memorials.
(BoE: Pevsner N & Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London:
1976-: 290).

Listing NGR: TQ7820868837

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17551383

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)