The Church of St Mary Magdalene is an Anglican church of the

Diocese of Oxford The Diocese of Oxford is a Church of England diocese that forms part of the Province of Canterbury. The diocese is led by the Bishop of Oxford (currently Steven Croft), and the bishop's seat is at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. It contain ...

. Named after Jesus' companion Mary Magdalene, it is located in the village of Willen, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Completed in 1680, it is the only surviving church among the buildings designed by the eminent scientist, inventor, and architect Robert Hooke. Regarded as a classic of early

English Baroque English Baroque is a term used to refer to modes of English architecture that paralleled Baroque architecture in continental Europe between the Great Fire of London (1666) and roughly 1720, when the flamboyant and dramatic qualities of Baroque ...

architecture, it was designated as a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1966.

History

The Willen parish registers date back to the year 1065. The current church stands in the place of an older one that resembled the church in Great Woolston, but without a turret, the two bells belonging to it hanging in arches, as at

Little Linford Little Linford is a village in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is about a mile west of Newport Pagnell, near the M1 motorway. The village is separated from its neighbour and namesake Great Linford (and the rest of the Mi ...

. The current church was commissioned and paid for by

Richard Busby Richard Busby (; 22 September 1606 – 6 April 1695) was an English Anglican priest who served as head master of Westminster School for more than fifty-five years. Among the more illustrious of his pupils were Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Rob ...

, the long-serving headmaster of

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

, who was also the local

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

in the village of Willen. The building was designed by former Westminster pupil Robert Hooke, who also supervised its construction. In addition to his work as an architect, Hooke was the curator of experiments of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, a member of its council, the

Gresham Professor of Geometry The Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to ten and in addition the ...

, and Surveyor of the City of London after the

Great Fire of 1666 The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

. Work on the church was probably carried out during the period 1678–80. The project cost Dr. Busby nearly £5,000, not including the materials taken from the former edifice. George Lipscomb observes that "with good management the church might have been built for a third part of the money." In the 19th century, the building was modified by removing the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

from the tower and adding an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

at the end of the church's

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

. This was a reversal of Hooke's original architectural intention, which was to combine a simple nave with a decorative tower.

Architecture and fittings

It is a plain structure in the Italian style, built of brick with stone dressings, and consists of a nave with apse, a chancel, and a west tower, through which the church is entered, by some stone steps. The tower contains three bells, each inscribed: "RICHARD CHANDLER MADE ME 1683". On each angle of the tower is an ornament somewhat in the shape of a

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

. The side walls of the nave are pierced by six plain windows; the pulpit and desk are of oak; the font, of marble, is ornamented with heads of cherubim, and has a carved oak cover; the pews are neat, and all oak; and the ceiling is coved, and enriched with angels' heads and other ornaments. The floor within the communion rails is paved with black and white marble. There is a vestry on one side of the tower, and on the other side is a room erected for a library, chiefly for divinity, and founded by Dr. Busby, for the use of the vicar. The books, to the number of 618, were removed to the vicarage, and in 1848, by order of the trustees, they were numbered and properly catalogued.

References

External links

*
Panoramic Virtual Tour of Willen Church
{{coord, 52, 03, 45, N, 0, 43, 12, W, display=title Churches in Milton Keynes Churches completed in 1680 Grade I listed churches in Buckinghamshire Willen 1680 establishments in England