St Mary Magdalene's Church stands in the village of Goldcliff, to the southeast of the city of Newport, Wales. An active parish church and a Grade II listed building, it is situated directly behind the Farmer's Arms public house.
History
Cadw dates the church to the 12th century.[1] It was rebuilt in the 14th century and afterwards, possibly using material from Goldcliff Priory after that was destroyed in a storm in 1424.[a][4] The priory had been given to Eton College by Henry VI shortly after he had founded the school in 1440, and the connection between the church and the college continued into the early 20th century.[b][6]
The tower is probably an 18th- or 19th-century addition. It contains one bell, recast by Taylors of Loughborough in 1969.[7] In the 19th century, the church was subject to an "austere" Victorian reconstruction.[1]
The church contains a plaque, installed by the churchwardens in 1609, commemorating the losses, material and human, which occurred during the 1607 Bristol Channel floods. It also has a modest memorial to the three men of Goldcliff who died in the First World War.[8] There is a medieval font with an 18th-century cover.[9]
The church is described by local historian Fred Hando in his 1958 Out and About in Monmouthshire. He includes a sketch of the church, with its avenue of pollardedlime trees[2] and notes that above the porch is a sundial inscribed "C.W. 1729".[10]
^The Living Levels website suggests that the earliest origins of the church may have been as a barn associated with Goldcliff Priory, and that the destruction of the priory in the 15th century saw the reconfiguration of the barn into a church. Odd pieces of decorative stonework, above the windows on the south, may have been taken from the ruins of the priory.[2] The RCAHMW also notes that possibility.[3]
^The priory and parish records are held in the Eton College archives.[5]
