East Donyland, Essex

St Lawrence is one of the more extraordinary churches I've visited so far. Victorian built it is an octagonal brick building and looks more like a baptist meeting hall or a water tower than a church. Much against my better judgement I found myself rather liking its eccentricity. Locked of course.

ST LAWRENCE. 1838 by William Mason of Ipswich. Quite remarkably original. An  octagonal church of white brick, in the lancet style. Groups of five stepped lancets on three sides, entrances on two others, and three lancets above the altar. - MONUMENT. Elizabeth Marshall D. 1613. Frontally seated woman, full-length, flanked by obelisks. Below in the ‘predella’ one kneeling daughter and two babies in cradles. Long inscription which reads as follows:

Clotho: In tender armes thy tickle rocke I beare
Wherin consists of life this hemispher
Frayle flyinge fadeinge fickle sliperye
Certaine in nothing but uncertaintye

Lachesis: From of thy rocke her slender thred I pull
When scarce begun but yt my spoole is full
Then tyme begetts bringes forth & with her haste
Makes after tyme tymes former workes to waste

Atropos: I with my knife have cutt that thred in twayne
And loosde that knott not to be knitt agayne
What two wer one my knife hath both opposd
In heaven her soule in earth her corpes inclosd.

The verses are attributed to Gilbert Longe, then vicar of East Donyland.

EAST DONYLAND. It is an old village running down a slope to the compact little hamlet of Rowhedge on the tide-swept banks of the River Colne. Ships are built on its quay, and small yachts moored in its creeks. But in this old place is no ancient church, only a modern one built of brick, its pews curving on an octagonal floor so that it looks like a chapter house. From the church that has vanished comes the brass portrait of Nicholas Marshall and his wife of Charles Stuart’s day; we are told of his wife that she surrendered her soul "with alacrity of spirit." A neighbour they must have known, Elizabeth Marshall, sits with hand upraised expounding from a book, a sculpture in marble.

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Old Heath Chapel, Colchester, Essex

On my way to East Donyland I passed, and stopped at, Old Heath Chapel which until then I'd never heard of. Old Heath Chapel was erected in 1869 as an outreach mission for Lion Walk Congregational Church. It is largely of corrugated iron structure and was known locally as the 'Tin Tabernacle'. The chapel was enlarged in 1888 and again in 1898. In the 1980s when Lion Walk became a United Reformed church, Old Heath became independent and retained its congregational status.

I'm rather pleased that this is the 500th church I've recorded.

 Neither Pevsner nor Mee mention it.

Wivenhoe, Essex

Wivenhoe, on the tidal banks of the River Colne, is utterly charming place particularly when the sun is out and it's 30 degrees in the shade! Its inhabitants, or perhaps it's the tourists, are plainly not to be trusted as St Mary the Virgin is kept tightly locked.

This is a run of the mill Victorian restored exterior (actually not  a restoration but a re-build following an earthquake) but the tower with its cupola is nice. I would have like to see for myself the brasses Pevsner mentions, not least because they appear in the family tree.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN. W tower of c. 1500 with diagonal buttresses. On top a wooden cupola, C18? The rest is 1860 (by Hakewill) and of no interest. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with quatrefoils and shields. - STAINED GLASS. A good deal that is evidently of c. 1860. - CHEST. Foreign, C16, with elaborate arabesque decoration and ornamental handles. - PLATE. Cup of 1562; C17 Paten; Flagon of 1709. - BRASSES. William Viscount Beaumont d. 1507, figure of c. 4 ft length but with a triple canopy with crocketed gables etc. which makes the whole plate 9 ft long. Same length the plate for Elizabeth, widow of Viscount Beaumont and wife of the Earl of Oxford d. 1537, The figure is larger, also in an architectural surround. - Thomas Westeley d. 1535, chaplain to the Countess of Oxford; in mass garments.

WIVENHOE. An old fashioned little town five miles down the Colne from Colchester, it has a quay facing the River Roman, a tributary from the west. Here they cultivate oysters and build yachts. The High Street has houses 300 years old, one or two with elaborate plaster decoration of foliage and trees. Overhanging storeys, gables, and carved bargeboards give charm to these old buildings, though it was sad to see Wivenhoe, a member of the Kent Cinque Port of Sandwich, fallen on hard times.

In the churchyard is a magnificent group of chestnuts. Most of the church was made new after an earthquake in 1884, but the bold tower of 1500 stood firm in the shock, and the 14th century arcades of the nave, some brasses, and a few old gravestones, and many moulded stones remain.

A splendid monument in the church is the brass portrait of Lord William Beaumont, who was buried here in 1507; his head rests on a helm bearing a lion crest and his feet are on an elephant which carries a castle. An elaborate triple canopy with gables and pinnacles shelters this great armoured figure. His widow married John, Earl of Oxford, and was laid to rest here in 1537. Her figure is also in brass, resplendent in a heraldic cloak and a pedimental headdress with a coronet; it has a triple canopy and an embattled super-canopy as well, a magnificent brass for so late a period. The countess lived in Wivenhoe Hall, and the wing with crowstepped gables built in her lifetime still stands. Toward Colchester is Wivenhoe Park, a well wooded estate in which deer wander over 200 up-and-down acres.

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Elmstead, Essex

SS Anne & Laurence - a rather odd looking church - was, sadly, locked. I say sadly because I had wanted to see the wooden effigy of a knight therein contained and the rather nice glass which I'd seen on Flickr. The rest of the interior looked rather plain.

An unusual feature are two scratch dials side by side to the west of the south door - something I've not seen before.

ST ANN AND ST LAURENCE. The N side should be examined first. It has a display of a doorway and some windows giving a complete chronology of the church, from the Norman doorway with Roman brick surround by way of the two-light windows with Y-tracery (c. 1300) in the chancel, to the C14 and early C15. The church is essentially C14. Tower over the porch not higher than the nave roof; W window like those in the chancel. The best architectural feature is the S chapel, again early C14. It has an arcade of two bays with a quatrefoil pier and an arch of two quadrant mouldings and in addition wall-shafts and wall-arches against the S wall. Contemporary Piscina on demi-shafts. Also early C14 the Sedilia and Piscina in the chancel. The cusped arches have hood-moulds resting on heads of exceptionally fine quality and gratifyingly unrestored. The E window unfortunately has been reduced in size, see the outside. It must originally have given the chancel great breadth and dignity. Unusual features in the church are the quatrefoil squint S of the chancel arch and the three ‘low side windows’, one in the chancel and two in the S chapel. They have recently been fitted with C14 bits of STAINED GLASS from the E window. - DOOR (behind the pulpit) with C12 iron-work. - COMMUNION RAILS with C18 balusters. - Box Pews early C19. - IRON CR0ss with highly scrolly decoration; it was a hat-rack originally; the date perhaps c. 1800. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup with bands of ornament and Paten on foot. - MONUMENTS. Oak efligy of a cross legged Knight. His feet rest against a female figure. - BRASS. Two hands holding a heart inscribed Credo. Dated c. 1500 by Haines.

ELMSTEAD. It has old cottages where the roads from Harwich and Walton meet, inns that have seen many centuries go by, a timbered hall 400 years old, and a roughly built church enshrined in trees. Begun in the 14th century, the church has a chancel nearly as big as the nave, and an unfinished tower with red tiles peeping out oddly among the trees. Here are fine stone seats with a king and a bishop carved on them 600 years ago, and a tablet telling us that an old vicar buried his little son the year before the plague came to London. The epitaph tells us that as careful mothers put their babes to sleep when they would play the wanton too long, so Nature put this little one to bed betimes to save his youth from harm. The chief possession of Elmstead is an old wooden figure, one of very few in Essex, showing a cross-legged knight with his feet on a woman, a strange piece of carving thought to be a memorial of Lawrence de Tony, who died about 1310. There are only a small number of these wooden figures in all England, probably a hundred.

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Ardleigh, Essex

St Mary the Virgin is a decidedly Suffolkesque looking church quite out of keeping with it's nearest neighbours but more akin to the further north Dedham and Stratford St Mary. The south porch and tower are particularly fine but the interior suffered a Victorian makeover (with the chancel being transformed into my idea of décor from hell.

It was, however, open so I will cut it a major slice of slack for that and the exterior.

ST MARY. W tower of c. 1500: brick with diagonal buttresses and pinnacled battlements of flint and brick decoration. S porch of about the same date. Extremely elaborate East Anglian work, all flint inlay and stone. Decorated walls and battlements. Pinnacles with figures. Two figures of lions couchant as stops of the hood-mould of the doorway. In the spandrels of the doorway lively figures of St George and the Dragon. Above the doorway three niches. The inner doorway has angels in the spandrels and also a niche above. Side-openings of three lights with Perp tracery - the pattem identical with that of the aisles at Brightlingsea. The rest of the church by Butterfield 1881, except for the W bay of the nave. Butterfield enjoyed the ornate medieval parts, but his forms are bigger. In the interior he is here very restrained. - SCREEN. Dado only, with pretty traceried panels. - DOOR, c. 1500, elaborately traceried. -  PLATE. Cup of 1584; Paten probably of the same date; both with bands of engraved ornament.

ARDLEIGH. It must have been an ancient home of men, as it has enriched the great museum of Colchester with Stone Age relics; but we found it gay with flowers and glorious with cornfields, for it has great nurseries and many farms. Ardleigh Hall has fine medieval timbers. There is a timber cottage of the 15th century near the church, and many quaint buildings go back 300 years.

The splendid tower of the church is 15th century, and in it hangs a bell cast in the years that followed Agincourt. The flint and stone work of the south porch is medieval, but the three old niches above the richly carved doorway have modern sculpture, and in their spandrels are St George and the Dragon. Crowned lions flank the door and two beasts sit on shafts running up from the buttresses. The doorway itself has quaint sculptures of Adam and Eve, and the door, with traceried heads, has been on its hinges for 450 years. The church has fine tracery in the base of an ancient screen rich in carvings of foliage, grotesque heads, and dragons.

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West Bergholt, Essex

I set off to cover the remaining villages surrounding Colchester with low expectations and wasn't disappointed - 6 out of 9 churches visited were locked and 1 was inaccessible unless I paid to visit Colchester Zoo.

First up was the old church of St Mary, now in the care of the CCT, which, despite a notice stating that it was open to all, was firmly padlocked (in my experience this is unusual for a CCT church). I'm not sure that I missed much as a peer through the plain windows showed a pretty stripped out interior.

ST MARY. Nave, lower chancel, belfry, and early C14 S aisle with Dec windows and low arcade of octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. Early C18 W gallery on Tuscan columns with triglyph frieze.

St Mary the Virgin in Bergholt itself is an ugly Victorian chapel.

WEST BERGHOLT. Stone Age men dropped implements here which our own generation has picked up, and signs of the Romans have come to light, so old is this village near Colchester. One of its farms has been using two doorways for 500 years, and another is 16th century. The church stands near a fine red house and most of it is 600 years old. Its wooden turret may be 15th century, but the work of the 14th century men is seen in the arches of the nave, the timbers ofthe porch, and the moulded plates in the roofs. There is an old door with ironwork by a long-forgotten smith, a font bowl possibly 700 years old, a quaint little gallery with the royal arms, a few scraps of glass as old as the church, and a big Tudor chest with six hinges. At each end of the building is panelling of the 17th century about the same age as the fine lectern with its elaborate decoration.

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Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire

St James, a CCT church, is open on Sundays from 2.30pm to 5.00pm between June and September and is well worth a visit. As the church guide says: As English country churches go the exterior of St. James' is pleasant but hardly exceptional. It is only when he walks through the south door and sees the inside of the church for the first time that the visitor realises that he is looking at an unusual and interesting building. For St. James' has a largely untouched 18th century interior. Perhaps because of the building of St. Andrew’s in the centre of the village the Victorian inhabitants of Stanstead Abbotts appear to have found it unnecessary to remodel the interior of the church in the way that Victorians in so many other English parishes remodelled their churches.

The aisle of the nave is stone slabbed and has high box pews on either side. The pews themselves are on concrete bases and it is said that there are brasses under the concrete. The bare concrete at the back of the nave also used to have box pews on it. The pews are of greatly varying size, are said to have been constructed in
1710 presumably by local craftsmen, and are made of deal.

The three tiered pulpit is perhaps the most unusual feature of the church not only because of its construction but also because of its position. It is 16th century and made of oak. At the bottom level is the parish clerk’s pew. At the next level is the reader’s pew and finally up a further four steps is the octagonal pulpit itself. The pulpit is backed by a heavily moulded oak Jacobean screen which used to support a sounding board or tester. The tester is now incorporated in the door of the west screen behind the organ.

This is a very special church.

ST JAMES. The interest of the church is its open timber s porch, original C15 work, and its N chancel chapel added in brick in 1577. The windows are still entirely Perp (E window three four-centred lights under one four-centred arch, N two-light straightheaded under hood-moulds). The arcade inside also with its octagonal piers does not betray any consciousness of the new Italian fashion. - Inside there are few churches in the county which have so well preserved an C18 village character. Whitewashed walls, a C15 kingpost roof plastered, a three-decker PULPIT and high BOX PEWS. - TOWER SCREEN. Tall and solid; C17. - MONUMENTS. Brass to a Knight, late C15 (chancel). - Brass to W. Saxaye d. 1551 (chancel). - Brass to a man and woman, c. 1550, holding each other’s hands (nave). - Sir Edward Baeshe d. 1587, wife and children; the usual kneeling figures facing each other across a prayer-desk. The children small below. Lavish strapwork cartouche behind the main figures. - Robert Jocelyn d. 1806, by the younger Bacon, with two urns, anchor, gun, and Sphinx (he commanded a ship at the taking of Manila in 1762). - Four epitaphs in the nave; a study in females mourning over urns: Philip Booth T 1818, by Manning; H. T. Baucutt Mash d. 1825, by Kendrick (two females); Mrs Booth; d. 1848, no doubt by Manning; Sir Felix Booth 'of 43 Portland Place', d. 1850, by Manning.

Stanstead Abbots. Here lies a man whose name is on the map of one of the most romantic spots in the world, but we have a long hill to climb before we find him, for the old village (where the Romans left a pavement 15 centuries ago) is on the northern slope of the Stort Valley, and the church, with its spiked 15th century tower, is at the top of the hill.

As we wind our way up through the trees a group of Elizabethan almshouses comes into view with a cedar and a pine towering beside them on a knoll. They were founded by Sir Edward Beash, son of the man who looked after the food supplies for Elizabeth I’s navy. He also added a chapel to the 13th century church. There they laid him to rest in 1588, and there we see him kneeling in stone facing his wife, with one son in armour and two in black cloaks on a ledge below him, and the royal arms of his queen in the window above. One of his neighbours, William Saxaye, who died in 1581, has his brass portrait here, and three others show an unknown knight in 15th-century armour, and a Tudor husband and wife with clasped hands.

We may imagine that these folk of long ago must have smiled at the quaint heads of men and animals outside the windows of the nave; they must have pushed open this medieval door in the 13th-century doorway, sheltered by an open timbered porch. There are 500-year-old tie-beams in the roof of the nave and a three-decker pulpit of the 16th century. It has lost its canopy, though the carved support for it still forms a background for the preacher, who may think it just as well that he is so high up, for otherwise he could scarcely see the congregation in the high box pews. Dwarfed by the lofty tower arch is a screen with much Elizabethan ornament on its door and cornice, and incorporating part of the 15thcentury rood beam.

Two reliefs showing a sphinx and emblems of war are in memory of a naval captain, Robert Jocelyn, who died at 82 the year after Trafalgar, and his son John, who had already fallen in the hour of victory at Alexandria. Another relief shows a woman gazing on the medallion portrait of Sir Felix Booth, the London merchant who was made a baronet by William IV for fitting out at his sole cost the ship which discovered the Magnetic Pole. The Endeavour set out in 1829 under Sir James Ross to make the North-West Passage, but made this discovery instead on the northernmost point of British North America, which is named Boothia Felix after the man who lies in this Hertfordshire village. Thanks to his generosity a great stride forward was made in geographical science, and in addition to the point Boothia Felix Commander Ross named after his patron a gulf, a cape, an isthmus, and two harbours.

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