Fordham, Essex

All Saints is an impressive building but utterly stripped of interest - it's normally kept locked but I got access since a nice man was working on the floor and allowed me in. To be honest having gained access I don't really think I gained much.

ALL SAINTS. Mostly C14. The chancel comes first, with cusped windows of two-lights under one pointed arch - an early C14 form, but dated here by the Royal Commission c. 1330. W tower with diagonal buttresses, the W wall early in the C19 repaired in brick. N and S aisle arcades C14 with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. The outer walls of the aisles and their windows rebuilt c. 1500 with regular bands of brick. 

FORDHAM. There are Roman bricks in the walls of its 14th century church, which was given a new aisle and a porch by the Tudor builders. A modern pulpit has little carved panels 300 years old, and there is a monument which shows us the head of a rector’s son who died of smallpox in 1715. He was John Pulley, a captain in the navy, and we see him with his long curly hair and cravat. Below is a little carving of men-of-war with sail set on a stormy sea. Close by, with a great walnut tree before it, stands Fordham Hall, part of it as it was in medieval days. It is not the only ancient house the village has, for there is a farm as old, a Tudor inn, and about half a dozen buildings of the 17th century, including a weather-boarded barn of seven bays.

Flickr.