Hart Saxon Church Saint Mary Magdalene

St. Mary Magdalene Church has been a place of prayer and worship for hundreds of years, with its roots dating back to the Saxon Era.

The earliest evidence of a church on the site where St. Mary Magdalene’s stands today dates to 675AD; this church would have been wooden, later being replaced by a stone building with a chancel and aisle-less nave.
During the Norman Era (11/12 C) St. Mary Magdalene Church was held in the estates of the de Brus family and in this time it underwent major building work.

In 1120 Robert de Brus gave the Church, along with other land, as a gift to the newly founded priory in Guisborough. The Church became the possession of the Crown in the 16th C when religious foundations were forcefully taken during the dissolution of the Monasteries.

The patronage of the Church was passed on to the Bishop of Durham in 1888, and restoration work in the late 19th C and then again in the 1970s and 80s followed to preserve this beautiful and historic spiritual home.