The Reawakening of St Mary Magdalene’s Regeneration Blog
By Natalie Thomas
We are four months into restoration works at the Church and nearly a quarter of the way to the finish line. Scaffolding now wraps around the entire building and the foundations for the future of St Mary’s are being put in place. There are a lot of exciting developments happening in the Church over the next couple of weeks. The restoration of St Mary’s is progressing well, and in these series of blogs we are excited to share these updates with the community!
The font was carefully dismantled into two parts in advance of relocation
Preserving our Historic Font
One of the most notable developments in recent weeks has been the relocation and preservation of our historic font. This remarkable piece of St Mary’s history dates back to the medieval time period and is part of the Church’s rich history with one of England’s most prominent historical events. It was originally damaged during the Civil War by the Parliamentarians with the bowl later being replaced by a local tailor in the 17th century. To protect the font during construction, it has been carefully packed away while essential groundwork is being laid. As part of the renovation, the font will be moved to accommodate the building of a café to welcome the local community and tourists into our Church. This week a new foundation for the Font has been built, with the base set to be installed in the coming weeks. Additionally, the steps leading to the font are being reconstructed, preserving a piece of history while making necessary practical improvements. Out of the three original steps, one will be reused for purpose and two are being donated to a local college for trainee stonemasons to practice on. When these foundations are all in place for the font, our building team will be collaborating with a company that specialises in moving monuments to ensure the font is carefully reassembled in its new location. This long progress demonstrates our commitment to honouring the Church’s heritage while making necessary practical improvements.
The font is safely boxed up and protected, ready for relocation
Creating a Community Space
As well as building a café we also look to create a community learning space within the Church and our team have been hard at work adapting our space to make room for this. St Mary’s has long played a vital role in the community running a community café, educational workshops, and events that bring together both the congregation and the local community. In our reawakening we are integrating these essential community functions into the Church. To make room for this new space the builders have been carefully adapting and shortening our pews this week. To preserve the original design of our pews, they have removed the end caps and panels and kept these to be used in the final design. Now this area of pews has been shortened, work is underway on adapting and fitting on as much of the original end caps and end panels as possible. Even the unused end panels have been kept for future restoration projects within the Church. This thoughtful approach highlights our effort to preserve the church’s historic character by reusing original materials in our renovation works.
With many exciting developments on the horizon for ‘The Reawakening of St Mary Magdalene’ we are grateful for the continued support of our team, congregation, and community. We look forward to sharing more updates with you as we attempt to preserve our history for future generations.
