St Mary Magdalene, Dorney

Last crawled date: 1 year, 9 months ago

'The church of St Mary Magdalene, Boveney stands on a site which has been a place of worship since before the Norman conquest. Its origins are obscure but the earliest known reference to it was made in 1266, when the offerings from the church were assigned to the vicarage of Burnham. The church originally served the village of Boveney and the area surrounding it: at that time it was one of the largest villages in the area. The church was also probably used by bargees and other riverside folk when there was a busy wharf nearby which was used for transporting timber from Windsor Forest. It was originally dependent on a mother church at Burnham and a bull of Pope Leo, dated 1513, ordered the Vicar of Burnham to find a Chaplain to 'celebrate Mass there as heretofore'. An act of Parliament in 1737 to make Boveney a separate living failed for want of sufficient endowment. The church was declared redundant in 1975 and there was then a possibility that it would be demolished or sold for conversion to residential use. Local residents, however, fought to save the chapel and it was eventually leased at a peppercorn rent to a Charity Group in London known as `The Friends of Friendless Churches'. This organisation now maintains the building.' #boveney #chapel #church #dorney #england #grade_1 #historic #Mary_Magdalene #Saint_Mary #Saint_Mary_Magdalene #united_kingdom #windsor