Highwood, Essex

St Paul was missed by both Mee & Pevsner which in many ways is fair enough - it's a template Victorian build (for example Cornish Hall End, Essex) and both are hideous and I suspect are from the same architect.

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Fryerning, Essex

St Mary the Virgin purports to be open but was locked when I visited. I met another visitor who'd been before and found it locked; also the high tech locks seem to indicate this is a shutdown church.

ST MARY. Small, with early C16 brick tower, with blue brick diapering, stepped battlements on a pointed-arched corbel frieze and brick pinnacles. Nave of coursed pudding-stone and Roman bricks, Early Norman, with four original windows and plain N and S doorways. - FONT. With big square bowl decorated with large scrolls, leaves etc; c. 1200. - STAINED GLASS. E window by Willement, in the Gothic style, but not the Pugin variety. - PLATE. Cup and Cover of 1700; Flagon and Alms dish of 1716. - BRASS in the vestry. Palimpsest. Woman of c. 1460 on one side, Mary Gedge, Elizabethan period, on the other.

FRYERNING. A little apart from the Roman road between London and Chelmsford, it has a sight not soon forgotten, a magnificent red tower standing out above a churchyard rich in pines and yews. It is a noble piece of 15th century brickwork, with handsome pinnacles, shapely windows and buttresses, stepped battlements, and tiny corbelled arches, a perfect tower of its age. There are red tiles on the church roofs, Roman tiles in the walls of the Norman nave and chancel, and wide-splayed Norman windows, some reshaped by a later age. The attractive little priest’s doorway is 15th century, but the people’s doorways are Norman, and one has a consecration cross. A striking Norman font is richly patterned with many designs. In the vestry is one of the best palimpsest brasses we have seen, mounted to show both sides. Its original engraving was of a 15th century lady in a horned headdress; but a little of the headdress is cut away to accommodate the plump face of Mary Berners, on the other side; she is wearing a handsome Tudor robe. There is a tablet to Captain Gordon Elton who died in the Great War after winning the DSO. It has these noble lines written 2500 years ago by the Greek poet Simonides:

Yet being dead they die not; in the grave
Though they be lying
These be the souls to whom high~valour gave
Glory undying.

By the church is Fryerning Hall, a house with timbers almost as old as the church tower.

Buttsbury, Essex

Heading off from Ingatestone to Stock I ran out of road, literally - the road to Stock was shut while the Man dug it up and installed something; so I backtracked to Buttsbury.

St Mary is not far from Ingatestone (I'd guess 2 miles maybe 3) is utterly isolated and yet is open - go figure.

A beautiful location is matched by a sublime church.

ST MARY. Small and alone. Short nave of two bays with two aisles, that is wider than it is long. Date CI4. Chancel of the C18 with C19 E window. Small W tower of timber, weather-boarded. The nave arcades are typical Late Perp, composite with the centre parts to the nave carried on into the arches without capitals and the side parts concave-sided semi-octagonal. Two original traceried windows were found during a restoration in 1927. - DOORS. The N and S doors are both old, that on the N more interesting. Some of the metalwork is C13, some later. - PLATE. Cup of 1563 and Paten of 1567, both with bands of ornament.

BUTTSBURY. Its small church stands lonely among elms and limes; by the path is a gravestone carved with a cherub fading away after 200 years. In a table tomb in the churchyard lies Thomas Tyrell of Charles Stuart’s day. Two doors and two windows are the fine possessions here. Both doors have ornamental ironwork, one with hinges of the 13th century and tendril-like bands of great beauty forged in the 14th. The windows, long embedded in plaster, now admit the morning sunlight down each aisle. Their tracery has the graceful curves in which our 14th century architects delighted. In two later windows are fragments of medieval glass, and a bell of the 15th century rings from a last century tower. A local craftsman of great skill has given the fine candlesticks and oak panelling.

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Ingatestone, Essex

SS Edmund & Mary was the big disappointment of the day. Situated in the middle of Ingatestone, which was extraordinarily busy, the church was firmly locked - sometimes I think these locked churches are asking to be vandalised. I have no idea what sort of town Ingatestone is but to me it felt like a nice place and I'm bewildered as to why the church was locked - this, as the following shows, seems to be a shame.

ST EDMUND AND ST MARY. A truly magnificent W tower of red brick with black diapers. Tall, with angle buttresses, a three-light brick W window with Perp panel tracery, and two-light windows in two tiers above it. Stepped battlements on a corbel frieze. Behind the tower the small and shortish N wall of the nave, obviously Norman, with walls of puddingstone and Roman brick. The projecting N chancel chapel is C17 brick. S aisle and S chancel chapel C15 to early C16. The S chapel is of brick and was built by the Petre family. Three-light E window with a transome and two- and three-light S windows. Inside, the impression is somewhat disappointing after the glory of the tower. Three-bay S arcade with short piers of the well known Perp four-shaft-four-hollow section, and double-chamfered arches. Three-bay brick arcade to the Petre Chapel, with octagonal piers and triple-chamfered arches. Nave roof with tie-beams, octagonal king-posts with capitals and four-way struts. - FONT. Perp, octagonal with quatrefoil panels bordered by friezes of small quatrefoil panels. - HOUR GLASS of iron, early C18, fixed to the pulpit. - PLATE. Cup of 1675; Paten and two Flagons of 1725; two Cups and covers of 1728. - Three HELMS of c. 1570. - MONUMENTS. Between chancel and S chancel the alabaster tomb-chest of Sir William Petre, Secretary of State to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary, and Privy Councillor, d. 1572, and wife, with recumbent effigies on rolled-up mats. Very fine quality. The tomb-chest with shell-headed panels separated by columns. - In the chapel itself Robert Petre d. 1593, monument with the usual kneeling figure; between columns of touch. - Also John Troughton d. 1621, with an outstandingly good portrait bust in an oval niche. Relief, in an informal demi-profile. - In the N chapel John, Lord Petre d. 1613 and wife. Standing wall monument of triptych composition with two kneeling figures in the wings, and two kneeling figures on a higher step in the centre. These are under a coffered arch. The parts are separated by black columns. The whole is straight-topped with obelisks and achievements. On the base in relief nice figures of kneeling children.

 

INGATESTONE. A landmark for 200 years, its windmill is still at work crushing oats and beans with stones turned by wooden cog-wheels, the wooden cap swinging round to the wind on a massive brick tower. The red-roofed houses of the old town crowd on the narrow road, and behind them looms another landmark, the 15th century church tower of black and red bricks and white-capped pinnacles, which dwarfs the little nave and the three gabled roofs. There are Roman bricks set in the walls by Norman builders.

Under the arch between the chancel and the chapel he built, Sir William Petre lies on his tomb with his wife, a stately alabaster figure in armour, looking up at the coat-of-arms suspended above him. Delicate ironwork rails off this ornate pillared tomb, a fine example of Elizabethan craftsmanship.

Sir William lived through 67 years of the 16th century, serving Henry the Eighth and his three children on the throne. He grew rich as one of the destroyers of the monasteries, and it is said that his reward was as much as 36,000 acres. Yet he is remembered as a man of great moderation, and one of the stories told of him is that of a French oflicial at Boulogne in 1550 who said, “Ah! we could have gained the last 200,000 crowns without hostages had it not been for that man who said nothing.”

Sir William’s youngest brother Robert appears as a kneeling figure on a wall in the chapel, and a portrait in relief shows Captain John Troughton wearing a sash across his richly ornamented armour.

A brass tablet tells us of a distinguished soldier of three centuries later, Algernon Wood, who went through the Boer War and the first Gallipoli campaign, and was shot dead in a Gallipoli trench within a fortnight of being awarded the DSO.

The noblest of all the monuments here is one raised by the second Lord Petre to his wife and parents; it is a masterpiece in black and white, almost filling the west wall of a chapel built for it. Three generations are here, the grandparents (the first Lord Petre and his wife) kneeling opposite each other in the central bay, both in rich fur-lined cloaks, the grandchildren carved in relief along the base, eight boys and four prim girls in full skirts and fashionable Stuart hats, and their father, a very dignified figure in one of the side bays, looking towards the wife whose death started the building of this superb monument.

Their old home, Ingatestone Hall, with its many delightful stepped gables, was altered in the 18th century but has still a pleasant look of Elizabethan days about it, and is now a Roman Catholic retreat.

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Mountnessing, Essex

With St Giles I was back on the downward spiral of locked churches which was a shame as architecturally this is a most peculiar building and I'd have liked to get a sense of it from the inside.

ST GILES. The church makes a handsome picture with the neat Georgian MOUNTNESSING HALL, a seven-bay brick building, with older parts at the back. The main interest of the church is its belfry standing as an independent timber structure in the W bay of the nave. It has six posts, cross-beams supported by impressively tall arched braces and trellis-strutting higher up. The E pair of braces rest on polygonal responds with concave sides. Big buttressing struts in the aisles of the church. The church itself is C13 except for the S aisle which is C19, the chancel which is C18 (of brick) and the brick W front with a date-plate of 1653 and heavy S-cramps for the securing of the belfry timbers. The N and S arcades have circular piers and double-chamfered arches. The capitals are moulded except for one and one respond on the N side which are enriched by stiff-leaf. Lancet windows in the N wall. - REREDOS. Probably c. 1730. Wood, with paintings of Moses and Aaron to the l. and r. - COMMUNION RAIL. Of the same time, with fine twisted balusters. - CHEST. Of dug-out type; perhaps C13. - PLATE. Cup of 1564 with band of ornament; Paten on foot of 1704.

MOUNTNESSING. Its houses run along the Roman road to Chelmsford, but the timber spire of its church is a mile away over the fields. The church has been refashioned from the one the Normans built, and the Roman tiles and Roman masonry they used are visible in the walls. We found the church in a garden of roses; it stands on a knoll above a 17th century hall and is renowned for the wonderful timbering set up in its nave in the 15th century. Its massive wooden turret is a wonder, for it is puzzling outside to see what holds it up. The secret is revealed within, where we find enormous beams cut from giants of the forest, supporting trellis work mounting to the roof. Shafts of wood with moulded capitals stand by the stone piers of the arcade, and wooden struts sweep over to rest against the walls of the aisles; it is a mass of woodwork that must weigh tons, yet is so ordered that it wastes no space. It is probably the work of the carpenters who carried the roof of the nave in one majestic sweep across the aisles.

The piers of the nave are strong and dignified, and from the deep-cut foliage of one of their capitals peeps out a woman’s head with a  band across the mouth - some local scold, perhaps, pilloried by a 13th century mason for all time. An angel smiles in pleasant contrast across the nave. There is a 15th century font and two old chests, one with lovely carving of the 17th century, one 700 years old with half a tree trunk for a lid, the original hinges, and rings at the ends for lifting. But the oddest thing we have seen in a church for a long long time is in a glass case here, a fossil rib of a whale.

The village has a windmill whose sails have spun round about 300 years, and a solitary arch 600 years old in the fields beyond it. The arch is part of Thoby Priory, which has medieval walls.

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Billericay, Essex

I openly admit that I arrived in Billericay with certain preconceptions - mostly negative - and was pleasantly surprised to find a certain affinity with St Mary Magdalene. Having expected a Victorian monstrosity I rather liked the blend of the old, the Tudor tower, with the new which blends in well. The interior has had a recent makeover and is, generally, 'clean' and well done (I have to confess a weakness for Galleries)- the stairwells to the Galleries are shabby - but the hideous purple chairs are a mistake, box pews would make all the difference.

ST MARY MAGDALENE. Brick W tower of c. 1500, with set-back buttresses below and chamfered angles above continued in polygonal pinnacles. The battlements between these are stepped (cf. East Horndon). The battlements rest on a trefoil-arched corbel frieze. W window of two lights with Perp brick tracery. The W ends of the aisles in the same style, probably 1880. The interior late C18 with a shallow apse at the E end and another facing the triangle of High Street and Chapel Street to the N. Three galleries on thin cast-iron columns. - FONT. Bowl with two cherubs’ heads, C18. - COMMUNION RAIL. C18.

BILLERICAY. It has quaint old buildings and tragic memories;the thread of English history runs through it. In a neighbouring wood the followers of Jack Straw were caught and massacred on their way home in the great Peasants Rebellion, a tragic chapter for a village; but it is the human tragedy of a little group of people who died for their faith that is so poignant here.

To walk down the High Street is like walking through 400 years. The village grew up round a chapel attached to Great Burstead, but it has left Great Burstead far behind, though its old folk are still buried with their ancestors in the shadow of that splendid church. Billericay’s church is 18th century, with galleries all round, but it has a medieval brick tower with a crow-stepped parapet and pinnacles, and its bell has been ringing 600 years. Behind the church is a row of 16th and 17^th century cottages, and in front of it is the Chantry House with timbers that must have been growing when the Conqueror came, for the house was built in 1510. One of the cottages has a medieval barn built with upright logs. In Chapel Street is a chapel founded in 1672, and its graveyard faces Mayflower Hall, which has a tablet commemorating a gallant company of village heroes, Christopher Martin and his wife Marie, her brother-in-law Solomon Prower, and their servant John Langerman. They sailed in the Mayflower on the most historic voyage of the modern world. There is still here for us to see something of the mill in which they ground the flour for provisioning this famous ship.

Christopher Martin was a boy on these hills in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when men were free to believe in God and worship Him in any way they pleased. The village had its bitter memories of Mary Tudor and her reign of terror, and old Widow Watts would tell little Christopher how her husband died at Chelmsford rather than deny his faith, and how her boys were willing to be burned with their father. Then there was the story of the three young girls of Billericay, Elizabeth Thackwell, Margaret Ellis, and Joan Hornes, who were burned at Smithfield one bright May morning for being Protestants. Joan had appeared before the Bishop of London and told him to his face that she began to learn the faith at eleven years old, and that she would continue in it, God helping her. Then, like another Joan a hundred years and more before her, she walked into the fire.

Christopher Martin grew up when these stories were being told in the village, and in time he married the Widow Prower at the altar of Great Burstead church. They joined a church in Chelmsford and in course of time crossed over to Holland and joined William Brewster and his friends at Leyden, where John Robinson was their minister. But there was ever the fear of a Dutch war with Spain, and at last their grim poverty, the temptations before their children, and their growing desire to spread the gospel in distant lands, stirred a spirit of unrest among them, and they set longing eyes towards America, the new-found world.

In the beginning of 1619 the little Dutch colony sent Christopher Martin and two others to England to arrange for the voyage across the Atlantic, and they came to the Thames, chartered the Mayflower, and set to work to provision her. One summer’s evening in 1620 Christopher and Marie Martin, Solomon Prower, and John Langerman, walked for the last time down the hill at Billericay to join the Mayflower at Leigh. Christopher was the treasurer, as one of the most trusted of this devoted band, but, alas for the tragedy of human courage, neither he nor his wife, nor any of the Billericay people, survived to leave their names in the new world, for every one of them perished in the terrible sickness which slew one-third of the Mayflower’s pilgrims in the first winter, spent on board the ship, lying off the coast where now stands the Massachusetts town of Plymouth.

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Little Burstead, Essex

I rather suspect that St Mary the Virgin is normally locked and that I struck lucky in that when I arrived there were what I took to be a team of people doing Community Service tidying the churchyard and as a result it was open.

I rather liked the straightforward exterior Nave and Chancel with a plain wooden belfry, the simple interior and a, what I took to be, much damaged Flemish window - it's not a top ten but if you like simplicity and a lovely location it's well worth a visit even if it is normally locked; not something I often say.

ST MARY. In a nice position overlooking rolling country. Wooden belfry, C15, resting on six posts with beams on braces, and crowned by a shingled broach spire. Norman nave - see one N window. Also in the N wall of the nave a small C13 lancet. Chancel with early C16 brick windows, three-light with Perp panel tracery at the E end, two-light on the S side. The nave roof is of the C15 and has tie-beams on braces and king-posts. The braces rest on angel corbels. The chancel roof, a little later, has braces connected with the tie-beams by tracery. - PLATE. Cup and Paten of 1629.

LITTLE BURSTEAD. It looks across the flat country stretching to the Thames, and has two Elizabethan houses, Hatches Farm and Stockwell Hall. The hall has a great clock with a face on which the figures are in blackened bones. The tiny church is 700 years old, built on a knoll and seen from afar. The nave is only 12 yards long, its west end filled with grand old beams supporting the medieval turret and its shingled spire. The tower arch is fashioned from the timbers. There is a brass engraved with skulls in memory of Mary Walton of 1678, and under the chancel lies that Sir George Walton who served under Rodney, captured a squadron of Spanish ships at one fell swoop, and in reporting to the Admiralty wrote, “the number as per margin.”

There is a little medieval woodwork preserved from the old screen and worked into the new, a little more in the modern reredos, and the church has treasured a piece of oak with fading colours which formed a background to a little altar before the Reformation. Two windows have delicately coloured glass of the 17th century, one with portraits of Christ and eight Apostles, each in a perfect little landscape. They are gems, probably by an artist from Flanders. One has Philip carrying a rustic-looking cross as he goes out to evangelise the world. The font is 15th century, and so is the roof, and on the doorway are mass dials by which the village told the time in the days before clocks.

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