St Mary Magdalen’s
St Mary Magdalen’s is a prominent Anglican church in the centre of Oxford. We are a living, vibrant community offering witness in the Catholic tradition through the Eucharist and the preaching of the Gospel.
A wooden church, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, stood on this site a thousand years ago, although it was then outside the northern wall of the city. Viking raiders burnt much of Oxford in 1010 and 1013, and the wooden church appears to have gone up in flames. In 1074, Robert d'Oilli, the Norman Constable of Oxford, built a single aisle chapel to replace the Saxon foundation. He attached St. Mary Magdalen to his collegiate chapel of St. George in the castle, even though the pre-conquest patrons had been the conventual church of St. Frideswide. The collegiate chapel was subsequently absorbed by Oseney Abbey (founded as a priory in 1129) and until the Reformation the Augustinian canons of Oseney provided the priests who served St. Mary Magdalen as vicars.