St Mary Magdalene's is an active parish church, with nine services per week and serving the community with youth and children's programmes.

Pevsner attributes this to the old Decorated plan, giving the aisles breadth, while the later masons added height.

It dates from about 1220, and is in the Early English Gothic style, with simple lancet openings and arcading but set with a later large window with Perpendicular tracery.

[8] There is a visible hole in the spire which is claimed to have been made by a musket ball during the Civil War.

[11] By the end of the 19th century it was erratic, and a new clock was gifted by the Mayor, Alderman B. Tidd Pratt, and set going on 14 July 1898.

The sanctuary is bounded on the south and north by two chantry chapels, the former of which has on one of its panels a remarkable painting from the Dance of Death.

On the north wall hangs the oil painting The Raising of Lazarus by William Hilton RA.

The church was designated a Grade I listed building, being of outstanding architectural or historic interest, on 29 September 1950.

The galleries and pews were removed, the stonework of the pillars, arches and windows was cleaned and repaired.

The organ was moved from the rood loft, and placed in the south chancel aisle, with an entry to the vestry through the middle of it.

The windows of the nave and transepts were renewed with Hartley's rough plate glass in quarries.

In the 1850s the organ was rebuilt by Forster and Andrews of Hull, provided with a new case and again re-located, this time to its present position in the south choir aisle.

Willis virtually doubled the size of the instrument and its case, creating a large Romantic four-manual organ.

It is now electrically operated by the Ellen Dynamic Transmission system which allows much greater mobility of the organ console, providing more direct contact with the congregation and the choir; it is the first four-manual instrument in the country to be so equipped, enabling a live performance to be electronically recorded and replayed automatically.

[21] The Choral Foundation was set up by Thomas Magnus in 1532[18][19] and was said to be the only existing pre-reformation choir outside cathedrals and Oxbridge colleges.