St Mary Magdalene

The little Norman building was still standing in its tiny churchyard when Sir Walter Raleigh first came to Sherborne in 1592. Raleigh got permission to demolish the old church and he built a new one where the present church of Castleton now stands. The new building, finished in 1601, appears to have been structurally a very poor substitute for the 450 year old church he destroyed, since it was described as very ruinous a mere hundred years later.

It is possible that the new church may have suffered damage in the two sieges of Sherborne Castle during the Civil War. So, in 1714 the 5th Lord Digby built the present church.

The layout of the new church showed a break with earlier tradition. Now the object was to emphasise the importance of Bible reading and preaching. Chancels at this period disappeared or became, as at Castleton, mere recesses. To begin with the new church had an east window, but soon after this was blocked; its outline is still visible on the outside. The church is remarkable in that, while it was planned as a preaching church, it continued the Gothic tradition in its arcades and window arrangement; it must have been one of the last. More than a hundred years was to elapse before Gothic was revived as a church style in this part of the country.

The church is full of character, and was justly admired by Alexander Pope who wrote: ‘The next pretty thing that catched my eye was a neat chapel for the use of the town’s people (who are too numerous for the cathedral). My Lord modestly told me he was glad I liked it, because it was of his own architecture’.