St Mary Magdalene Woolwich

St Mary Magdalene Woolwich is an 18th-century Anglican church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene in Woolwich, southeast London, England.

Christianity in Woolwich goes back to the Early Middle Ages. In 2015 Oxford Archaeology discovered a Saxon burial site in the area close to the Thames east of Woolwich Ferry. It contained 76 skeletons from the late 7th or early 8th century. The absence of grave deposits indicates that this was an early Christian settlement. The first church in Woolwich was probably pre-Norman conquest and dedicated to Saint Lawrence. It stood on a promontory about 37 m north of the present-day church, more or less where the belvedere overlooking the river now is. The church was slightly separate from the early riverside settlement in Old Woolwich. From the early 10th till the mid-12th century Woolwich was ruled by the abbots of St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent, probably as a result of a gift from Ælfthryth, daughter of King Alfred and Countess of Flanders. Around 1100 Henry I gave the church to Gundulf of Rochester, bishop and prior of Rochester Cathedral. It was probably around this time that the church was rebuilt in stone. The church tower with walls of chalk and flint was partly excavated in 1970.

Wikipedia