Church of St Mary Magdalene

Details

BRISTOL

ST57NE MARINERS DRIVE, Sneyd Park 901-1/53/1808 (West side) 04/03/77 Church of St Mary Magdalene

GV II

Church. 1860. By John Norton. Steeple 1872, S chapel 1883. Snecked Pennant rubble with red sandstone banding, limestone dressings and tile roof. Aisled nave, N transept, S chapel, apsidal chancel and SW tower. Early Pointed Gothic Revival style. The apse has trefoil lancets and linked, stilted hoods and a red ashlar sill band rising round the arch, between buttresses; a low N vestry with 3 lancets, organ chamber with trefoil-headed door and eaves stack, and 2 lancets and a shouldered arch door to the S chapel. 2-light plate tracery window to the organ chamber N gable, and a pierced rose window to the adjoining N transept gable; 6-bay N aisle, each with plate tracery 2-light windows between buttresses, and 7-bay clerestory of paired lancets. The tall S chapel gable has clasping buttresses and 3 tall lancets below a round window with a quatrefoil forming a cross; S aisle and clerestory as the N elevation; 4-stage gabled tower divided by red bands with wide clasping buttresses to just below the top; S door has a moulded, shouldered arch and triptych of the Crucifixion in the tympanum, within an arch of 2 orders on marble shafts; inside is a porch and doorway with 2 orders separated by dogtooth, and rear arches to the windows; narrow lancets to the second and third stages, paired belfry lancets of 2 orders with shafts separated by dogtooth moulding, and clocks to the gables; stiff leaf cornice has gargoyles at the corners below tall, crocketed, octagonal pinnacles with corner shafts, and a steep tiled spire. A narthex projects at the W end with an arcade of trefoil arches with animal head stops and parapet of trefoil panels, and doors at the ends with stiff leaf capitals; deep angle buttresses frame a plate tracery window of 2 paired lancets within pointed arches and an octofoil; below the apex is a blind arcade of 5 trefoil-headed arches with a central narrow light; single lancets to the aisles. INTERIOR: painted roof with detached shafts, with a stencil round the base of the chancel roof; reredos of a central arched niche with figures from the Last Supper and flanking trefoil arcades containing 3 similar sedilia and 3 arched niches to the N; windows have trefoil-headed rere arches with foliate capitals and banded shafts painted black, and triple vault shafts in the angles to a 3-bay arch-braced roof; 2 arches to the S have marble shafts and moulded capitals, and corbels with 3 shafts to the roof. S Chapel with arch-braced collars, chamfered and stopped. Tall chancel arch with the inner of 2 orders born on foliate corbels, and a marble dwarf wall at its base; 5-bay nave arcade has 4 attached shafts to piers with deeply carved foliate capitals and canopied hood stops to the N side, and W responds on head and shoulder figure corbels; between the clerestory windows are deep, moulded corbels with shafts to the roof; 2-light rear arches to the aisle windows, and of 2 orders to the W window. FITTINGS: Probably an original set include a brass altar rail, choir stalls and pews, octgonal pulpit with brass hand rail, a brass eagle lecturn and an octagonal font on marble shafts; an open Perpendicular screen to the Chapel, which has an altar screen with angels to octagonal shafts. Shown without the tower in Winstone. (Crick C: Victorian Buildings in Bristol: Bristol: 1975-: 20; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 473; Bristol As It Was: Winstone R: 1879-74: Bristol: 1967-: 90, 91).

Listing NGR: ST5595775506

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

379982

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 473
Winstone, R, Bristol As It Was 1879-1874, (1965), 90 91
Crick, C, Victorian Buildings in Bristol, (1975), 20

End of official list entry

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