Stapleford Tawney

In all honesty I can't bring myself to say anything complimentary about St Mary and when I look at the nave picture I actually think oh no, so I'll leave it to Mee.

ST MARY. Nave and chancel assigned to the C13, on the strength of renewed lancet windows and the blocked N doorway. Belfry on four posts; low E-W braces, higher N-S braces. Above the beams carried by the braces is cross-strutting in all four directions. - COMMUNION RAILS, C17 with square tapering openwork balusters. - PLATE. Almsdish of 1685; Large Cup and Paten inscribed 1698.

STAPLEFORD TAWNEY. It is on a hill which runs down to the River Roding. One of the farms has the dry moat of the vanished hall round its walled garden, and a line of huge chestnut trees screening it from the church. The wooden bell-turret, springing from the 13th century nave, has a shingled medieval spire seen from far and wide. There is a splendidly preserved coffin over 700 years old, a perfect little tomb with a lid on which the weather has not yet succeeded in obliterating the rare crosses. There is also an open coffin shaped for the head. On a wall is a tablet in memory of Henry Soames, a rector of last century, a shoemaker’s son who became famous as a historian, his chief works being histories of the Reformation and of the Anglo Saxon Church.

Even he struggled.

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