Church of St Mary the Virgin
The Parish Church of St Mary-the-Virgin is a Grade II* listed building located at the top of the High Street in West Malling. The tower and the western part of the chancel remain from the original Norman church that was built by Bishop Gundulph nearly 1,000 years ago.
The Chancel (the area where the High Altar stands) is unusually long and was lengthened in the 13th century. The Nave (the area where the congregation sits) and the Chancel were both rebuilt at that time in the early English style. The frame of the Chancel Roof appears to be very old and may well date from the same period.
A lightning storm in 1712 set the spire ablaze and brought it crashing down onto the church. As a result, the middle part of the church had to be almost entirely rebuilt. The initial repairs were not sufficient and the building deteriorated throughout the 18th Century and large parts of the nave became dangerous and had to be demolished. It was properly rebuilt in 1778 in the Georgian style.
The spire was not original to the design of the church and was a much later addition to the Norman tower on which it now sits. The height of the spire is 70 feet and, from the base of the tower to the very top of the spire, is 120 feet. The spire is famous in itself after it appeared on the £10 note for a period during the 1990s.
The Georgian building stood for around 120 years until, in the Victorian era, the community in West Malling decided to take down the nave, stone by stone, in order to replace the building with one that they said was ‘more suited to the better taste of our own generation’. On the 27th November 1901, the new nave was formally consecrated by Dr William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The published co-ordinates will bring you to the front entrance of the church where you will need to answer the following questions.
1ABC = date on drainpipe immediately to your left when facing the entrance
1DEF = date on drainpipe 10 metres further to your left
You are looking for a 30ml magnetic tube at the following co-ordinates:
N51 17. (C+F) A (D-F) E000 24. B E (A-C-F)
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