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Church of St Mary Magdelene

Church of St Mary Magdelene

The entrance to this 12th-century flint church looks like something out of a Medieval fantasy three rows of Norman carvings arch over a thick wooden door set with ornamental hinge straps.

Inside, creatures unlike anything found in nature peer down from the chancel arch. They are called ‘beakheads’ boggle-eyed monsters with beaks, tongues and squid-like tentacles that frown and glare at visitors below. Once they would have been painted in bright colours to entertain or terrify worshippers.

The 12th-century font is an unusual shape, decorated with arcading and cable moulding round the rim, and in the north aisle are two fine Kempe Studio stained glass windows from 1896.