Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 18 May 2023 to amend the description and to reformat the text to current standards
656-1/0/0
HOLLOWAY (north side)
Chapel of St Mary Magdalen
12/06/50
GV
II
Anglican chapel of ease. c1495 for Prior Cantlow, tower added 1823, possibly by HE Goodridge, but tower arch not cut through until 1889, east end restructured after bomb damage in 1942.
MATERIALS: limestone ashlar or rubble, slate roof.
PLAN: narrow nave, south porch, north-west vestry, west tower, wider chancel and sanctuary.
EXTERIOR: tower, which is not square, in three stages, with crenellated parapet and obelisk pinnacles. West front has two-light louvered stone window to bell stage, above two close spaced stringcourses, with two-light window in Perpendicular style to lower level. South front similar, but without lower window. Nave has small cusped window above porch, and three and two-light square headed windows with cusped lights, to stopped drips, and rebuilt ashlar wall to chancel set forward, with cornice, blocking course and parapet over three-light window as in nave. At left hand end deep projecting porch, with coped and shouldered gable over C15 image niche above plank and fillet door to four-centred head, shoulders have deep saddleback copings. Main gables are coped, with cross-saddle to east end, and two prominent ridge ventilators. East end has three-light Perpendicular window in deep casement mould and with drip-mould, gable end shouldered where sidewalls are taken out beyond line of nave. North side of nave has lean-to vestry, below small one and two-light cusped openings, and two three-light windows with cusped heads, plus three-light to chancel.
INTERIOR: porch has inner door to moulded surround, flat four-centred head with spandrels, and medieval image niche, each side has low stone bench, and floor in Minton tile. East wall stone plaque recording Prior Cantlow's rebuilding of church, and seeking prayers for his soul, and carved corbel-head. Nave plastered, with plastered barrel vault to cove cornice, and rere-arches are slightly peaked, with thin mould surround. Medieval image niches built at window height, three to north, and two to south. Floor carpeted, with wood block to pew areas. High windows suggest may have been west gallery. Tower arch narrow, with broad chamfers, and chancel arch carried on responds. Two steps in polished conglomerate lead to wider chancel with Minton tile floor, and flat ceiling each side of central barrel. Altar table on two further steps, and has dark oak reredos below window with deep casement mould, containing glass of c1950 by Michael Farr Bell.
Fittings and monuments: round bowl font removed from Huish parish church in 1980, late C19 pews, pulpit and reading desk, C19 reed organ. Fine mannerist Baroque wall tablet to Ann Nicholas, d.1662, inscription painted in white on black, and with broken reversed scroll pediment and high relief carvings, three other tablets on nave north wall. Simple war memorial panels removed from redundant church of St Mark, Lyncombe (qv).
HISTORY: situated off the Fosse Way, the main southern approach to the city, this chapel was a medieval foundation associated with the Abbey in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135). Leland described the area in c.1536 as `a rockky hill, full of faire springs of water, and on this hill is set a faire street, as a suburbe to the city, and in this street is a chapel of St Mary Magdalen'. Cantlow's re-foundation in 1495 involved a rebuilding. The church was associated with a leprosy hospital from early times; in the C19 this role was transferred to an asylum for children'. The church was ruinous up to its 1820s rebuilding, re Britton.
SOURCES: (John Britton, `Bath and Bristol' A Series of Views (1829), 36 & illus.; R.E.M. Peach, `Bath Old and New' (1891), 110-12).
Listing NGR: ST7474464163
This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 16 August 2017.
