ST MARY AND ST PETER. The Norman S doorway with an arch of three bands of saltire-crosses is not in situ. The nave, chancel and S aisle are C13, as is proved by the chancel N lancet, the S arcade of two bays with circular pier and double-chamfered arches and the remarkable W lancet now looking into the tower. This shows that the tower is later. Its details, e.g. the windows, are indeed C14 looking (as is the N arcade with octagonal pier and double-chamfered arches). But the tower has still the low, broad, unbuttressed appearance of the earlier Middle Ages. Perp chancel arch and chancel roof (tiebeams, king-posts with four-way struts). The date of the steep TOWER STAIRS of primitive construction is hard to assess. - FONT LID, Jacobean. - PULPIT. Typically Jacobean. - CHEST. C13, of hutch-type. - HOURGLASS STAND. C17, wrought iron, attached to the Pulpit. - No monuments.
WENNINGTON. It is in the level country of Rainham marshes. The arch of a Norman doorway reset in a refashioned aisle is the oldest part of its church, but the 13th century has much to show: a nave and chancel with narrow windows still in place, a handsome round pillar supporting an arcade, a low marble font, and, most remarkable of all, a hutchlike chest of wood, on which the slots for the hinges remain; it is one of the old chests which guarded the documents of our villages before a Parliament sat in England. The small tower and the pier of the other arcade were built in the 14th century, when the kingpost roof was set over the chancel. The best examples of woodwork here, both belonging to the 17th century, are the pulpit, with delicately carved pilasters and arched panels, and the elaborate oak font cover. By the pulpit is a 17th century hourglass stand with leaf-like ornament. On a wall is a curious little monument to Henry Bust, who kneels at prayer near the pulpit in which he preached in the days before the Civil War. With him is his son.
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