Chadwell St Mary

Whilst not overly exciting St Mary the Virgin (locked no keyholder) stands out in a sea of mediocrity, Chadwell is not a pretty place. The north door has a fairly poor Norman tympanum and there's little else of real interest but I liked it.

ST MARY. Norman nave with S doorway. Above the N doorway tympanum with rosettes and saltire crosses. Chancel C14 with original roof. W Tower of c. 1500 with diagonal buttresses at the foot, W doorway and little ogee-headed niche to its r. The difference in the Norman and the C15 flintwork is worth noting. - CHAIR. Late C17, sumptuously carved, perhaps French. - PAINTING . Finding of Moses, ascribed to one of the Carracci, but closer to Luca Giordano.

CHADWELL ST MARY. It rests on one of the finest gravel beds in England; and here end the chalk hills, from which we have a wide view over the reclaimed marshes round Tilbury, with the Kent hills rising behind Gravesend. The most charming house in the village stands at the cross-roads. Known as Sleepers Farm, it is a timber-framed building of the 15th century with a thatched roof. Much of its original woodwork remains, and it has a battered door of the 17th century. Fifty yards away stands the church, perhaps the successor of a church erected by St Cedd, missionary to the East Saxons, who, tradition says, baptised his converts in a well close by. The tower was built about the time of the Wars of the Roses. Its embattled parapet has brick and flint chequerwork, and quaint faces looking out. The doorway through which we enter is 15th century, but above it is the round head of the entrance made by the Normans. Across the nave is a plain Norman doorway, on which a mass dial was cut in the days before clocks.

The chancel has three works of art of great interest, an elaborately carved chair 250 years old, and two fine paintings, one of the Finding of Moses said to be by Caracci, the other Christ at the House of Simon Peter, a copy of the painting by Paul Veronese.

Flickr.