Chappel, Essex

St Barnabas (sic) was a chapel and was upgraded to a church in 1968, why I don't know. Remove the spire and porch and you'd have a really charming chapel of ease much like the Chapel of St John in Whittlesford. I suspect that the spire and porch are Victorian additions - more's the pity.

CHURCH. Nave and chancel in one, and belfry with very pointed little spire. The church was consecrated in 1352 and yet the window tracery is still of a type usually connected with the fashion for a Norman Revival, specially ill-advised, where, as here, the material is white brick. Tall round-headed lancet windows. Angle turrets to the facade. Elaborate decoration. No aisles, no galleries. 

CHAPEL. A viaduct over 100 feet high and with about 30 arches here crosses the valley of the Colne, and a handsome little Georgian house with plaster panels is a neighbour for the church. Above the red roof of the church rises a wooden belfry with a short spire, and its ancient door, swinging on the old hinges, brings us to a nave with 14th century walls. The pulpit and reading desk, about 300 years old, were used by Timothy Rogers, a great-grandson of John Rogers, the first victim of Mary Tudor’s persecution. Timothy was a famous Puritan of Cromwell’s time, and wrote the Jewel of Faith, a book widely read in his day.

Flickr set.