The Swaffhams, Cambridgeshire, Pt 2

Having had an orgiastic photo session at St Mary I was returning to the main road when I spotted a silver spire and decided to have a quick look at Swaffham Prior - which was a slight mistake but only in terms of making me late home for my youngest's return from school.

As I drew closer I became convinced that I was looking at a water tower rather than a church but carried on in order to ascertain and record what the church, if any, was like. The village is pretty but the jewel is the two churches of St Mary, and of St Cyriac and St Julitta - both have octagonal towers which was new to me, as was two churches built cheek by jowl in the same location. St Cyriac is redundant, and locked, with a spartan interior whilst St Mary is in use, open and full of interest. Monuments, brasses, hatchments, floor tablets removed to the walls and lovely glass.

I am so glad I followed a whim and discovered a site with two such wonderful churches.

Two large churches stand here in one churchyard, both dramatically raised above the present street. One is complete except for the upper part of the tower, the other has only a complete medieval tower, and the rest is post-medieval and derelict.

ST MARY. The thrill and the surprise of the church is its tower, Norman clearly in its lower square as well as its first upper stage which is octagonal. So there was an octagonal tower in Cambridgeshire long before the Ely Octagon was designed. The shafted windows in the main axes with roll-mouldings in the arches are unmistakably Norman. So is the enormously deep tower arch inside into the nave. The W porch is, needless to say, a Perp addition. It had originally a fan-vault. The exterior of the tower is specially impressive, because it is continued in an E.E. octagonal stage with lancet windows (with surrounds of two slight chamfers), and then goes sixteen-sided instead of eight-sided in an upper stage the top parts of which are in ruins. The tower looks fine with its ragged skyline. It was struck by lightning in the C18. Inside, owing to that calamity, the tower is even more dramatic, open right to the top roof. One can see that the Norman octagon was reached by means of squinches. What is puzzling in the tower is the two pointed arches N and S, cut by the heavy Norman E arch, and the springing of two separate C13 ribs on corbels from the SE corner. So there must have been quite a low entrance room. - The nave arcades of four bays are Perp of a general lozenge shape with shafts towards the arches carrying castellated capitals, and otherwise mouldings without capitals. Above the arches runs a castellated frieze, and thin shafts reach up between the clerestory windows. The clerestory is also Perp and externally of flint, while the aisles are built of a brown stone in small blocks of brick size. The chancel is of flint and stone and almost entirely by Sir Arthur Blomfield (1878). - STAINED GLASS. A queer series from St Cyriac, designed by T. F. Curtis and made by Ward & Hughes c. 1910-20. Many smallish scenes under Gothic canopies. Amongst them Mount Pilatus in Switzerland, Wicken Fen, a trench from the First World War, and the Statue of Liberty. - BRASSES. None of special interest. Richard Wates d. 1515 and wife (18 in. figures); William Wates d. 1521 and wife (21 in. figures); Husband and wife, c. 1530 (17 in. figures); Robert Chambers d. 1638, in top boots; John Tothyll d. 1645 and wife (13 in. figures).

ST CYRIAC. Perp W tower. The rest of the church was rebuilt 1809-11 in yellow brick and in the Gothic style. That building however, has been given up and is left to decay as best it can. The Perp tower, however, remains: diagonal buttresses, W window with four-centred head and intersected tracery; then the tower turns into an octagonal shape with buttresses on corbels. Flushwork parapet.

St Mary

St Cyriac and St Jullita

SWAFFHAM PRIOR. It has two windmills and two churches. One windmill is working, the other has done with work; one church has a nave but no steeple, the other has a tower but no people. The two churches stand in one churchyard, side by side. The 18th century nave of the church of St Cyriac and his mother Julitta is derelict, but its 15th century tower still stands, its top with eight sides seeming to overhang the square base, an illusion arising from the fact that the pilasters rise from carved corbels. St Cyriac's serves as a place of worship no more, but its bells call the people to St Mary's, whose nave has been in ruins but is now itself again. St Mary's own tower, once the model for St Cyriac's, begins square, rises to an octagon and then to a lantern with 16 sides. The lower part is Norman lit by round-headed windows, the top stage is 13th century with pointed lancets, and then comes an abrupt end where the steeple was pulled down after being struck by lightning. From inside its arch, six feet thick, we can see that the tower is now but a shell, with a quaint turret stair and a medley of medieval glass in one window. The medieval arcades and their embattled capitate have been patched up. The old font has been brought back from a garden rockery. Some coffin stones have found sanctuary here, and five portrait brasses have survived from three centuries. The oldest shows John Tothyll of 1463, with his wife and dog. Next comes Richard Water with his wife; then William Water and his wife and seven sons; then a charming couple of 1530; and last Robert Chambers, in the top boots and long cloak fashionable in Charles Stuart's days.

Belonging to our own day is the pleasant chancel screen with a vaulted loft and the charming gallery of stained glass, every window with six scenes, original in conception and softly coloured. Two windows sing the hymn of praise in scenes of all Creation, the volcano and the glacier, light and darkness, the shadow of the Moon eclipsing the Sun, and the sea with whales. Some may recognise among the scenes Sedge Fen at Wicken, others Mount Pilatus. Edward the Seventh is here among a group of natives. The windows in the north aisle tell the story of the war, the Zeppelins and the aeroplanes, tanks and guns, men fighting and dying, munition makers and ambulance men, and peace at last, with the men back at their work in the countryside. Two swords hanging on the wall recall wars of other days. With one Colonel Allix, descended from Huguenot refugees, fought at Waterloo in the British Army; the other belonged to an officer who was with Lord Roberts in one of the dramatic scenes of the Boer War, when Cronje surrendered.

Flickr set.

More Pillboxes

In June 1940, with the Germans expected to invade, the department for Fortifications and Works (FW3) was established by the War Office with the express purpose of designing a range of pillboxes and implementing a series of defensive stoplines across Britain. The objective was to break England into a series of small fields surrounded by a hedge of anti-tank obstacles which was defensively strong using the terrain available. The idea was that should an enemy force break into an enclosure the pillboxes would hold that force so that our armoured units and troops could attack and destroy the enemy. The pill boxes were designed so that they could defend from either direction (i.e. front and back). The stoplines were continuous anti-tank obstacles reinforced with pillboxes and other prepared defensive positions.

The GHQ Line ran through Essex from Canvey Island to Great Chesterford before heading north to Yorkshire. Obviously most pillboxes were faced eastward, although some were placed facing west in case of a rear attack.

The FW3 pillboxes were basically flat pack constructions which were adapted for local needs leading to variants around the country but the predominant styles were:

Type 22 - a regular hexagonal with embrasures for rifles or light machine guns in five sides and an entrance in the sixth.The walls were approximately six feet long and were, generally, built to the bullet proof width of 12 inches although tank proof variants of 40 inches depth occur. They have an internal Y or T shaped anti-ricochet wall which also supported the roof. This is, apparently, the most common extant pillbox type although on my part of the GHQ Line the 24 seems prevalent.

Type 23 - a rectangle with one half roofed and the other open with embrasures for rifles or light machine guns in the three available walls of the roofed half. The open section was used for anti aircraft units such as a mounted Bren or Lewis gun. They were about eight foot wide by sixteen feet long and usually built to bullet proof standard.

Type 24 - an irregular hexagonal, with the back wall the longest (normally about fourteen foot)with an entrance and embrasures on each side of the doorway. The other five walls are approximately seven to eight feet long and each have an embrasure for rifles or light machine guns. They had an internal Y shaped anti-ricochet wall which also supported the roof. Generally built to bullet proof standard. This and the Type 28 seem to be most prevalent in Essex.

Type 25 - an eight foot diameter circular design built to bullet proof standard with three embrasures. The 25 is very rare - I think I've turned into an anorak because I'd love to see one of these, although arguably I already am one since I pillbox spot (although in my defence it's good exercise for the dogs)!

Type 26 - a ten foot square with a doorway in one wall and embrasures in the other three, and sometimes a fourth in the entrance wall, built to bullet proof standard.

Type 27 - the most varied of the FW3 designs, it may be an octagonal or hexagonal in plan with walls between 9 ft 9 in and 11 ft 6 in. The outer walls being 36 inches thick and have embrasures suitable for rifles or light machine guns on each facet. Its defining characteristic is a central well open to the sky that could be used as a light anti-aircraft position.

Type 28 -  almost square in design with chamfered forward corners and typically twenty by nineteen feet walls which were built to shell proof spec - normally about 42 inches. The large forward facing embrasure housed either a 2 pounder anti-tank gun or a Hotchkiss 6 pounder. The two side walls normally have smaller embrasures for rifles or light machine guns and the rear wall has a large doorway for allowing the gun to be sited.

Type 28A - is a larger, and more commonly found, variant which includes an infantry chamber  with a front facing embrasure for rifles or light machine guns which resolved the Type 28's vulnerability to a head on infantry attack.

Type 28A Twin - a further variant with two gun embrasures on adjacent walls and two infantry chambers giving variable fields of fire to the position.

Vickers machine gun emplacement - a fourteen foot square with chamfered forward corners built to shellproof spec, normally the entrance has a freestanding blast wall. The front wall has a large embrasure and the side walls have embrasures for rifles or light machine guns. There were no internal blast walls but rather a concrete table for mounting the Vickers. Normally positioned in pairs and often dug in for extra protection.

The section of the GHQ line near me starts in south east Great Dunmow and runs north west through Little and Great Easton, Tilty, Broxted, Chickney, Widdington, Debden and Newport. At Newport the line turns more northerly, running through Wendens Ambo and Audley End before ending in Littlebury (from Littlebury it continues to Great Chesterford and thence, as said, to Yorkshire).

Type 24 Variant camouflaged by a barn at Tilty

Type 28A Tilty, Essex

Type 28A Tilty, Essex

Type 24 Variant, Tilty, Essex

 Type 28A Great Chesterford, Essex

Flickr set.

The Swaffhams, Cambridgeshire Part 1

In two words - effing awesome; I would have never stumbled across these three Churches unless I had been unable to find Landwade, which was the intent of my original journey, and having failed I returned home and then decided to check out the Swaffhams and Dullingham - Dullingham lost out to a Swaffhams lovefest (I'll go to Dullingham at a later date but am sure it wont impact as much as the Swaffhams - look at the name!).

As an exterior experience St Mary, Swaffham Bulbeck, is interesting but slightly run of the mill. An early C13th century tower - lancet style - built of clunch and limestone looms over a later nave and chancel of the C14th with later aisles added.

The exterior corbels are varied and interesting and the surrounding houses are lovely - but it is the bench carvings that make this church truly exceptional. Dowsing, or his supporters, destroyed many of the carvings but many remain and, to me, set this church apart from many others. The C15th benches are capped (or perhaps ended? Although Mee calls them poppy-heads and arm-rests) with dogs, hawks, lions, camels, whales, a hare and fantastical beasts like dragons, wyverns and mermaids. Presumably the figures are allegorical, representing both good and evil. Sadly many have have been defaced or totally removed but enough remain to excite interest.

ST MARY. E.E. W tower with angle buttresses and lancets (double-chamfered mouldings; no capitals). The rest mostly C14. Outside, the N aisle windows come first, with early C14 forms. Then the chancel E window of five lights, chancel side windows of three lights, and the S aisle windows. They all have the flowing tracery of the second quarter of the century. Perp (and of flint - the rest is clunch) the clerestory. Inside, the tower arch and chancel arch are typical early C14. The arcades of four bays have octagonal piers and arches with one straight and one hollow chamfer. In the chancel a group of one recess and three Sedilia goes well with the tracery of the windows. Ogee arches, crocketed and topped by a fleuron frieze. Perp and contemporary with the clerestory the nave roof with flat arched braces, some tracery above them, and bosses. - BENCHES with beasts (bull, lion, camel, wyvern etc; also a mermaid) instead of poppyheads. - CHEST. C15, North Italian. The front has rather defaced shallow carvings, but the carving inside the lid is clear: Crucifixion in the middle, with Signs of the Evangelists at the corners, Assumption on the l, Resurrection on the r. The compositions are based on engravings.

A dogfish, I think?

I think this a fishdog

Arthur Mee says:

SWAFFHAM BULBECK. It has a lovely corner with cream cottages roofed with thatch and pantiles, an oast-house among long barns and a farm with walls made up from the ruins of a nunnery founded by a Norman who gave his name to this place and whose family may have bequeathed to it its greatest treasure. The treasure is something we have rarely seen, a magnificent cedar-wood chest made by some Italian craftsman five centuries ago as a travelling altar. Its lid is carved inside so that it can open to form a reredos and the carvings show the three crosses on Calvary with the multitude pressing about them on horseback and on foot, another scene of the Resurrection and one of the Assumption. The front of the chest has a frieze of angels and Old Testament scenes.

The church which houses this treasure is mostly built of chalk that has stood 600 years, with a tower a century older still. The beautiful medieval windows, crowned with a clerestory, fill it with light, so that we can examine in detail the quaint creatures carved on the poppy-heads and arm-rests of the 15th century benches—birds and animals, camels and mermaids and griffins, one fish caught swallowing another, and fishes with feet and heads of animals. The beautiful chancel has tracery in its windows like butterfly wings and an elaborate sedilia near which is an old coffin, its broken lid carved with a cross.

One of the vicars here was a remarkable man who lived through all but seven years of last century, known for 71 years as Leonard Jenyns and for 22 as Leonard Blomefield. He had something to do with the way the career of Charles Darwin went, for he was a first-rate naturalist and was offered a post as such on the voyage of the Beagle. As it would have taken him from the village for five years he could not go, and recommended Darwin in his stead. When Darwin came home Blomefield wrote the volume on the fishes Darwin had discovered, and many walks had they together in the countryside, observing life in aspects common to them both. He was a disciple and an editor of Gilbert White and could almost recite White's Selborne by heart. His own chief book was a volume of British vertebrates, but he wrote a charming autobiography and many scientific papers. He lived till he was 93 and was buried at Bath, having seen his younger friend Darwin laid to rest in the Abbey.

Flickr set.

Debden, Essex

St Mary the Virgin is truly stunning not least because you have no idea what to expect until you get out of your car! It is secluded from the village and reached via a narrow lane; surrounded by trees it is practically invisible until the last minute. The church dates from the 13th century with major , to my, untrained eye, sympathetic, renovations in the 18th.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN AND ALL SAINTS. The interest of this church is connected with R. M. T. Chiswell who added the E chapel in 1793 and the Font in 1786. The church itself has C13 arcades of four bays with circular piers with moulded capitals and moulded arches. Only on the S side the two first capitals are enriched by upright leaves. The S aisle windows are Dec; C14 also the S porch. The W side has no tower but a front design which looks the idea of Gothic which the period about 1800 had. So it no doubt also belongs to Mr Chiswell’s time. To the same time the pinnacles must be attributed. For his E chapel Mr Chiswell got John Carter, the celebrated antiquary, to provide the design. It is an octagonal structure on the pattern of such a chapter house as York, connected with the church by a broad passage. The material is white brick, and all the detail of tracery outside (E window) and inside is of papery thinness. The chapel has a ribbed plaster vault, the passage timber arches with thin pendants. Inside the chapel is the elaborate MONUMENT of R. M. T. Chiswell  d. 1797, a tomb-chest with foiled decoration in the style of the C15 under a sumptuous arch in the style of c. 1300. Two other minor MONUMENTS in the current idiom of Late Georgian epitaphs are by King of Bath. - Large monument to William Burhill, d. 1703. It is signed Thorne (R. Gunnis). - FONT. 1789 3 octagonal of Coade stone in an elaborate and crisp Neo-Perp, with foiled panels; against the stem minute figures. The design was provided by R. Holland. Of Coade stone also the two medallions with quatrefoils outside the E chapel. - STAINED GLASS. In one S window heraldic glass evidently also late C18. The church stands all on its own in the beautifully landscaped grounds by the made lake. The Hall (by Holland, 1796) was demolished  1936.

Chiswell Arms

 Muilman Arms

Trench Arms

Exterior arms

Exterior arms

Exterior arms

Holland Memorial

Sadly the interior is a disappointment and doesn't live up to the, frankly, stunning exterior and wonderful setting - despite this I'm placing it as number two behind Saffron Walden and Thaxted as joint number one in North Essex.

And it has loads of snowdrops - which has to be good.

Arthur Mee:

DEBDEN. It is rich in old houses and farms, some Tudor and some 17th century. Scot's Farm at Hamperden End has in one of its rooms a lovely frieze with lions' faces. Mole Hall, its moat still wet, has three original chimneys, a fine barn, and two timber-framed outhouses with oak staircases. Amberden Hall, some way off, also has a moat; and New Amberden Hall, for all its name, is 17th century. The great house is Debden Hall, which stands by a lake in a splendid park of 200 acres; it was built in the 18th century, and is said to be the successor of one that stood here in the Con­queror's day.

The church of this beautiful village is in a perfect setting, reached through a field rich in Spanish chestnuts. It has seen many changes, the 18th century having given it a new chancel and bell-turret; but it has kept a 14th century doorway by which we come to a nave with 13th century arcades. One of the aisles is 15th century; the other, with its porch, is a hundred years older. There is a Tudor chest bound with iron, a window with the Chiswell arms, and an elaborate modern altar tomb to Trench Chiswell, who rebuilt the chancel after it had been destroyed by the falling of the old tower. A tablet tells of Harold Fisher, a Haileybury boy who helped to defend Ladysmith, won the DSO, and lived on to die for us in the Great War.

Flickr set.

Clavering, Essex

SS Mary & Clement could, probably justifiably, be kept locked but I've always found it open - for which I'm truly thankful since this is a fascinating church with lots of interest.

ST MARY AND ST CLEMENT. A church of pebble-rubble, all Perp and all embattled. The W tower has angle buttresses, the aisles, clerestory and S porch three-light windows. Inside, the N and S arcades have curiously detailed tall, slim, lozenge-shaped piers. They have a thin demi-shaft on a semi-polygonal base and towards the (four-centred) arches semi-polygonal shafts. The roofs are all original  low-pitched and have a number of original head corbels. The nave-roof has tie-beams, the slightly earlier chancel has not. - FONT. Octagonal, of Purbeck marble, with two shallow blank pointed arches to each side, c. 1200. - PULPIT. Elizabethan, with two tiers of the typical short broad flatly ornamented arches. - BENCHES. Plain in the S aisle, with traceried ends in the N aisle. — SCREEN, with S broad, tall, one-light openings, cusped and crocketed ogee heads and panel tracery above. - STAINED GLASS. Much of the C15 in the N windows ; probably Norwich school. - MONUMENTS. Efligy of a Knight in chain-mail with coif and mail-coat reaching nearly to the knees. Purbeck marble, early C13. - Brass to one Songar and wife, c. 1480 (17-in. figures). - Brass of 1591 with kneeling figures. - Brass of 1593. - Margaret Barley d. 1653 and Mary Barley d.1658, both wives of the same man, almost identical, with frontal busts in oval niches between columns. Attributed by Mrs Esdaile to one of the Marshalls. - Haynes Barlee d. 1696, erected in 1747. Elegant frontal bust with decoration of a cool and classical style.
CLAVERING CASTLE. Remains of the site N of the church, near a handsome gabled C17 house called THE BURY. The site is rectangular with a ditch 75 ft wide and 18 ft deep. There probably have been stone buildings in the castle.

Arthur Mee:

CLAVERING. Scattered about a brook which feeds the River Stort it has, in a meadow by the churchyard, an acre of mounds with a dry moat round them, believed to have been the Roland's Castle in which Normans arriving before the Conqueror fortified themselves after incurring the anger of their Saxon hosts. On the hill is a windmill which has lost its sails.

The Grange, with brickwork between its timbers, stands in spacious grounds, and there are delightful overhanging cottages, one said to have been a 15th century almshouse. Next to it is a shop with carved Jacobean woodwork and wall-paintings of religious subjects. The clerestoried 14th century church has its original porch, and two fine arches in the tower and the chancel, supported by weird heads, are balanced by dignified nave arcades. The oldest possessions of the church are the 700-year-old bowl of the font and a stone figure of a knight in 13th century mail, lying in a recess. On a wall-tablet is Haynes Barlee, of grave features and curly hair, with his third wife, and to keep him company is a tablet in coloured marbles with a bust of his first wife, several children, and some skulls, and a bust of his second wife, "by whom he had a very plentiful fortune." There is another tablet in memory of the wife of William Wales, the gallant astronomer who sailed with Captain Cook and saw him die. He was one of that broken-hearted band who came home with the news a year later, and he settled down as mathematical master at Christ's Hospital. He took great interest in the condition of Society and was one of the first to conceive a census of the English people; but he found so much religious hostility to the idea that he gave up his researches. There are brass portraits of Thomas and Ursula Welbore and their six children in Elizabethan costume, and on another brass are three girls left motherless by Joan Smith in the 16th century.

The church is rich in treasures of 15th century glass, with scenes from the life of St Catherine, angels, Madonnas, the head of Christ crowned with golden thorns, and St Cecilia. All the roofs are 15th century, that of the chancel supported by finely sculptured heads, and a bishop and a company of grotesques sustaining the roof of the nave, which has fantastic bosses carved on its beams and seraphim watching from the sides. One roof has bosses of musicians playing, a priest in his robes, and an angel with an organ.

The high 15th century screen has panels of saints drawn in black lines on a white ground. There are over a score of medieval benches, two Tudor chests, and two 15th century chairs. But the masterpiece of craftsmanship here is the Jacobean oak pulpit, which, set on the stem of its medieval predecessor, is carved on each of its seven panels and has delicate inlay work of other woods.

Flickr set.

Chrishall, Essex

I ran out of time when I visited Chrishall - I had to get back for the youngest - I'll re-visit and do interiors. The south side of the churchyard has been more or less cleared of headstones and the north side is predominately modern. Fantastic battlements though.

I returned the other day, October 2010, and borrowed the key (after having to explain my reason to a deeply suspicious keyholder). For the de la Pole monument and brass alone it was worth the trip!

HOLY TRINITY. Quite a large church, on a hill, and on its own The material is pebble-rubble. C13 remains are the responds of the tower arch and of an arch at the E end of the N arcade. The rest is all Perp, the diagonal buttresses, and the flint and stone chequered battlements of the W tower (spire taken down in 1914), the battlements nearly all round the church (not N aisle) and most of the windows, and also the aisle arcades. These have an elongated semi-polygonal section without capitals and only towards the arches small semi-polygonal shafts with capitals. - FONT. Plain, of c. 1300. - PAINTING Large copy of Rubens’ Adoration of the Magi of 1624 at Antwerp. -  PLATE. Cup and Paten on foot of 1686. - MONUMENTS. Effigy of a Lady in a recess with depressed segmented arch and battlements; late C14. - Brass to Sir John de la Pole and wife, c. 1380. Figures, 5 ft tall, under a tripartite arch with thin side buttresses, an uncommonly important and satisfying piece. - Brass to a woman, c. 1450 (12 ins. long). - Brass to a man and wife, c. 1480 (18 ins. long; good).

Arthur Mee again:

CHRISHALL. It is charming with thatched and timbered cottages 300 years old, a gabled farmhouse of Shakespeare's day and a 15th century inn. It has, too, an ancient site that leaves us guessing, a mound surrounded by a moat still with water in it. Standing finely near a group of white cottages is the battlemented church, built by 15th century men who kept the thick Norman walls at the base of the tower, but made a fine new tower arch. On her tomb lies a stone lady with a perky dog at her feet; but the chief pride of the church must be in its brasses, one magnificent indeed. It shows John and Joan de la Pole of the 14th century, and, with its rich triple canopy, is one of the finest brasses in this country. John, wearing armour and a tunic, is hand in hand with Joan, who, with her pretty headdress and close-fitting gown, is a very captivating lady. At their feet are a dog and a smiling lion. Two other brasses show 15th century people, a lady with a high waist and a veil, and a man and his wife kneeling. For 600 years children have been baptised at this font; and there is a 16th century roof with Tudor roses over the north aisle, a fine modern kingpost roof in the chancel, pews with woodwork 400 years old, and lovely carvings of kneeling women.

Flickr set.

Chickney, Essex

St Mary was the first CCT church I encountered and immediately became my bell-weather church for Essex - a stunning location, lonely not to say isolated, a beautiful building and, in my experience, always kept open; simply put outstanding.

ST MARY. Saxon nave with two original double-splayed windows. Chancel with small E.E. lancets. The chancel arch is about a hundred years later. Its imposts are exceedingly curious; they are regarded by the Royal Commission as C19, but are not necessarily so. Pretty two-light squint to the l. of the arch. - FONT. C14 with buttressed stem and bowl with deep crocketed ogee arches with shields in the spandrels. - FONT COVER. C16, pyramidal, with embattled foot, and crockets, but certain leaf motifs which look Elizabethan. - PLATE. Small Cup with baluster stem, c. 1630-40.

Arthur Mee:

CHICKNEY. Here, its walls askew, stands one of the oldest and most remarkable churches in Essex. With a couple of farms and a cottage or two, it is all there is of Chickney.

The church stands in an oval churchyard - a shape loved by the Saxons - and is much as the Saxon builders left it. Here are their nave and chancel, the chancel having been lengthened in the 13th century and the little tower added a century later. Stirring it is to look at these walls and feel that they were here when the Conqueror set foot in Sussex. There are doubly splayed Saxon windows in the nave, with doorways of the 14th century; and in the chancel two Saxon windows keep company with two of the 13th century. On two of the windows on the south side are several old scratch dials. The kingpost roof of the nave is 600 years old, and so is the chancel arch, by which is a curiously shaped peephole through which the altar can be seen. The 19th century restorers came upon the altar stone set in the chancel by the 13th century men, and here it is in position again, with its five consecration crosses. A splendid font to which the babies have been coming for 500 years is carved with canopies and angels and shields.

Close by stands a 17th century house which has kept some of its old panelling; and about a mile away is Sibley's Farm, built in the 15th century, a gabled house with overhanging storeys. It has a Tudor staircase, Tudor fireplaces, a Tudor barn, and one of the oldest dovecots in Essex.

Flickr set.