St Mary Magdalene

The medieval chapel of St James was demolished and replaced in 1841 by the current red brick church, to a design by Edward Blore. Blore, better known for his work on Buckingham Palace, had recently designed and re-built for Lord Chesham the adjacent Latimer House after a disastrous fire.

The church was substantially enlarged and re-designed by George Gilbert Scott in 1867. Gilbert Scott had a close family association with the area. As a teenager he had lived for a year in the Old Rectory opposite the church with his uncle, Samuel King, the rector of Latimer and Flaunden from 1821 to 1857. The church in Flaunden, over the border in Hertfordshire, is thought to be the first church designed by Scott. At Latimer Scott was responsible for lengthening the nave (after the removal of the gallery), for the apse with its shafted columns on the exterior, the vestry, the organ chamber, the north and south transepts and the attractive wooden panelled roof. The naturalised foliage on the column capitals inside is also his. All in all a substantial makeover! The church was reconsecrated in 1868 by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford 1845-70 (and son of William Wilberforce, the leader of the movement to abolish slavery).

The structure has remained essentially unchanged since. The stained glass windows, some alas now faded, were designed by the Pre-Raphaelite designers Henry Holiday and Harry Wooldridge and made by the notable firms of Clayton & Bell and Powell & Sons. There is more information about the glass here.. The pulpit is the top deck of the three tier Jacobean pulpit originally installed in the earlier, medieval church.

The churchyard is noteworthy for a memorial slab, up against the south wall of the south transept (to the right of the porch), to Mrs Catherine Yale, widow of Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University is named. Further east in the churchyard is a World War I grave marked by a white wooden cross.