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Squires Bridge Road, SHEPPERTON, TW17 0QB

The parish church for Littleton, Shepperton Green, Charlton Village and Ashford Common (South). Originally dating from the 12th century, it had additions in the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries, with the tower raised in the 18th century. It was restored in the 19th and 20th century. Grade I listed - for listing particulars see www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1377699.

The Church is a Grade I Listed Building. There is a lot of detail about the Church on the English Heritage website but briefly the first part describes it thus:- "C12 origins, with chancel and south aisle C13, north aisle C14, clerestory C16 and tower raised in C18. North chancel chapels (now vestries) of 1705 and c1730, all restored in C19 and C20. Ragstone, chalk and conglomerate on nave with brown brick to lower stages of tower, russet brick to top, orange/red brick to clerestory and chequerboard brick work with vitrified headers on north chancel chapel. Plain tiled roofs. Tower to west, nave with clerestory and pentice aisles, porch to south, chancel to east and vestries to north. Four stage tower with plat bands across each stage and on plinth below; battlemented parapet above. Quatrefoil windows to upper stage of each face in rebuilt section. One 3-light diamond brick mullion lancet window on west side of second stage, two-light windows on north and south. Four-centre, arched-head and chamfered surround to lancet windows on north and south sides of first stage, three-light window to west." The photographer assumes that the tomb to the right, which dominates the graveyard and appears now to be sadly severely damaged, must belong to the family that owned Littleton House and its estate. This may seem like an idyllic country churchyard but immediately behind the photographer is the graveyard wall and beyond that Shepperton Studios...

The parish church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene off Squires Bridge Road. The church dates from 1135 and serves Carlton, Littleton, Shepperton Green and Ashford Common.

Viewed from the south-east.

This is cut into the brickwork of St Mary Magdalene Church. For more detail see : http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/bm55745

Baines studied for the priesthood at Lichfield Theological College. He came here after curacies at Pembridge, Southwark and Gospel Oak.

The oldest parts of the church are at its east end - medieval and stone-built, but (as is so often the case) restored in Victorian times. More unusual are the brick-built clerestory and west tower. Pevsner suggests an early 16th century date for the clerestory - roughly contemporary with Wolsey's Hampton Court.

St Mary Magdalene, Littleton - now hemmed in rather heartlessly by Queen Mary Reservoir and Shepperton Studios - is about all that is left of the countryside which must have existed here for centuries. I find it hard to imagine the local landscape before 1900, but I'd guess there were orchards, market gardening, and dairy farms - all sending fresh food to London and the towns of the Thames Valley. The pale stone built into the wall nearest the camera seems to be chalk - used along with a motley mixture of rubble. The west tower is of red brick, and so is the wall of the nave clerestorey .