St Mary Magdalen

St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey is the home of a Christian community in a vibrant area of Southwark. Our vision is to be “here for good”, a lasting presence for good in the community. As a church we provide a place for worship, study and personal reflection. With our building we provide space for community events and other organisations/charities that may want to use it. Our site is a significant place that reflects the wonderful history and heritage of the area. We are embarking on a project to rehabilitate and reorder the space to better serve all these functions and open the building more regularly.

St Mary Magdalen was the medieval parish church of Bermondsey, situated just to the north of the Cluniac priory of which almost nothing now remains. The lower stages of the west tower may be 15th century, the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1675-9 by Charles Stanton. The whole exterior was stuccoed in 1830, and it was then that George Porter remodelled the west front in ‘a gimcrack but charming Gothic Revival’ (Pevsner 1983 pages 599, 600). (This paragraph was contributed by Bill Hibbert).

The church burial ground was in use for hundreds of years. During periods of plague, burials increased. In 1665, as many as 500 in the space of six months. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the area around Bermondsey Street became a community of prosperous tradespeople and their artisan workers. Well known and well respected, many are represented in the churchyard. Tombs and vaults contain several family members (Jennie Howells, 2020). The churchyard is now also a public park, everyone is welcome.

The first recorded pipe organ was installed in 1698-9; the current organ case may date from then or possibly later in the first half of the 18th century. The remainder of this organ was removed in 1853 when Joseph Walker built a new organ inside the old case. This instrument survives today with only minor modifications (Nicholas Thistlethwaite, 2023).