St Mary Magdalene, Castle Ashby
St Mary Magdalene, Castle Ashby
St Mary Magdalene is a Grade I church in the park at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, in the Diocese of Peterborough. It stands within the Grade I registered landscape of Castle Ashby.
- Location
- Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Northamptonshire
- City / town
- Castle Ashby
- Address
- Castle Ashby Grounds, Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, NN7 1LQ
- Postcode
- NN7 1LQ
- Built
- C14 and C15 with older origins; restored 1869
- Architect
- G E Street (restoration 1869)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- Peterborough
- Parish
- Castle Ashby
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Decorated and Perpendicular
- Materials
- Coursed limestone rubble with lead and copper roofs
- Grid reference
- SP 863 591
- Opening hours
- Open daily 9am to 6pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
Overview
Historic England records a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century church with older origins, restored in 1869 by G. E. Street. The fabric is coursed limestone rubble with lead and copper roofs. The plan comprises chancel, north chancel chapel, aisled nave, north and south porches and a west tower. The three-bay chancel has a five-light Perpendicular east window. The two-storey north porch re-uses a late Norman or Transitional doorway with shafted jambs, stylized leaf capitals and dog-tooth.
The tapering three-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, a battlemented parapet and an ogee-domed cupola. Northamptonshire HER notes a three-bay arcade, a brass to a priest of about 1400, an early seventeenth-century pulpit, and in the north chapel a Purbeck marble effigy of a knight said to be Sir David de Esseby (d. 1268). The listing records Minton tiled floors and stained glass of 1888. The church is open daily.