Broomfield

I have to admit to a certain ambivalence towards St Mary with St Leonard; on the one hand I love the exterior with its round tower and handsome nave and chancel but on the other I dislike the conical, shingled spire and the over-restored interior. However I was lucky when I visited since it is usually kept locked with no keyholder listed but a very nice lady was sorting out prayer requests and, I think, supervising a general churchyard work party and let me have a snoop.

Since there was no guide I'll let Mee expand.

ST MARY. Norman round tower with much Roman brick re-used. Low, with later shingled broach spire. Un-moulded round headed tower arch. Norman also both nave and chancel, see the Roman brick quoins on the S side. The chancel was lengthened and given its large E window in the C15. The N side of the church belongs to 1870. - FONT. Square, of Purbeck marble, C13 with three shallow blank pointed arches on each side and (an exception) angle shafts. - PLATE. The old plate has gone to a church at Margate.

I think I come down on the Yay side of the fence.

BROOMFIELD. Its soil has yielded up Stone Age weapons and many bits of Saxon England, but the oldest things visible are the Roman bricks used by the Norman builders of the church. They are in the nave doorway and in the tower windows, and they form the end of the Norman chancel which the 15th century builders extended. Parts of the church have been rebuilt in modern times, but the round tower has been standing 800 years, and is one of only six old round towers in Essex. It rises to a conical roof and a shingled spire with little gable lights. The font is about 700 years old; and hanging in the belfry is a clarinet, last used here in 1870. The chancel is the last resting-place of Patrick Younge, a friend of Charles Stuart, who lies under a stone carved with his arms. He was the king’s librarian, and died in the village; it is to him that Broomfield owes one of its treasures, a Bible Charles gave him.

Flickr set.

Boreham

St Andrew is lovely, and also hides a gem of a chapel to the Earls of Sussex, with an outstanding covered walkway to the south porch and really pleasing proportions which look like the intention was to create a cruciform church. Despite receiving the attentions of the Victorians for once they've not done left a disaster but a really pleasing church.

The Domesday Book refers only indirectly to a church in Boreham but there was certainly a large church here of which there are some impressive remains. The Saxon chancel arch is 20 feet high, and 10 wide. It is turned with Roman brick as is the niche to the north of it. The area under the tower was the Saxon Chancel, externally can be seen the Roman brick quoins of its north-east and south-east corners. Also outside can be seen the Roman brick quoins marking the north-east and south-east corners of the Saxon Nave. The first fifteen feet of the tower are Saxon work, including possibly the two windows in the ground floor stage.

When the Normans took over they cut on arch in the east wall of the chancel, turning it with Roman brick, and pushed the chancel out eastwards. The theory is that they thickened the walls of the old chancel on the inside and raised the tower. An ancient aumbry can be seen in the thickness of the wall. They built an internal staircase at the south-west corner. The simple doorway to it is now sealed. A second Norman doorway can be seen over the chancel arch. This and a third one, not visible in the church, can be seen best in the Ringing Chamber.

The present Nave was built in the thirteenth century, right against the inside of the Saxon wall. It is sixty feet long and seventeen feet wide. North and south aisles were identical, five feet nine inches wide. The western section of the south aisle remains, its original west window can be seen, and on the north side what is left of the west lancet window of the north aisle. The Nave roof, of great expanse, swept down to cover the aisles. Just inside the door to the east is all that is left of the Holy Water Stoup of this period. Of this time too are all that remains of two beautiful consecration crosses on the imposts of the east Tower arch.

In the late thirteenth century a chapel was built into the east end of the south aisle. It is just over thirteen feet wide. Evidence of a window in the east wall can be seen. In the roof space over this, above the ceiling, there is a small circular window. A mutilated Piscina, its canopy hacked away, can be seen in the south wall. The Font is of this period. A comparison of its canopy and trefoil-headed arches with the piscina would suggest that they were by the same craftsman. The Font is unusual in that it has six sides, and straight sides, the bowl and the shaft are one. The tiles in its arches are Victorian. The windows, roof and ceiling of this Chapel were restored in 1909. This date can be seen in the windows.

Great changes were made in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The old Norman chancel was rebuilt. A hermit's dwelling was attached to the north wall through which a squint was cut at an angle to focus on the high altar. This can be seen inside the church with traces of iron work on it, which appear to have been a grill. A pointed arch of the Decorated period was set in under the Saxon chancel arch. It is off centre to avoid breaking into the Norman stairway. The open timber arch (now glazed) is of this period. The south end of it is modern. The north aisle was built to be 13 feet wide, with a flat roof. Outside, forming the ends of the drip stones, are sculptured heads, showing the styles of hair and head-dress of the period. The easternmost window has the only woman depicted. It may be that the man and woman on this window are Lord and Lady of the manor, and perhaps donors of the new building. The great five-light Perpendicular window at the west end of the Nave was inserted at the end of the fourteenth century.

The will of Thomas Radcliffe, third Earl of Sussex, ordered the family tomb to be made, and the Chapel to contain it. The magnificent monument, partly of marble, has effigies of the first three Earls in alabaster. It was the work of Richard Stevens of Southwark, and cost nearly three hundred pounds. The parapet of the Tower, which is five feet high, is of Tudor brick and was added, or rebuilt, in the mid-sixteenth century by the third Earl. Of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods there are a simple Parish Chest of oak, a bench and a joined stool.

A Brass of 1573 to Alse Byng was set up by her son Isaac. It shows a woman in clothes of the period, and her six children below - one boy and five girls, each child having its name inscribed above its head. The monogram in a Tudor knot is from the initials of son Isaac. The slab was formerly in the floor of the nave. The brass was cleaned and repaired in 1987. When it was removed it was found to be o palimpsest, the reverse being of the mid-fifteenth century.

About the middle of the nineteenth century it was decided that the Sussex Chapel was in a dilapidated condition. It was taken down and rebuilt half the original size. The Tyrell vault was built on the north-side of the chancel, new doorways were built south of the Tower and to the Ringing Chamber. The old Norman access inside was sealed. The whole of the eastern part of the church was restored. The lower part of the walls was painted deep purple with a broad band of green and grey stencilling. The windows all had coloured glass. It must have been very dark and gloomy. The floor of the chancel and sanctuary was paved with beautiful tiles of Maw and Company.

The final piece of building was about 1900. It is the Vestry adjoining the Porch to the west.

Early in the twentieth century extensive restoration was carried out. The root of the nave was entirely reconstructed. It was at this time that the great Saxon chancel arch was discovered, and the smaller Saxon arch to the north of it. In this latter is built a stone cap from which the chancel arch sprang, and a fifteenth century piscina, or perhaps rather, niche or little cupboard. The original foundation of the north wall of the nave, probably the Saxon one, was discovered in 1969. It was three feet three inches deep and two feet six inches wide. It is outside the present line of arches and pillars. At this time too the Saxon arch was completely uncovered.

The best glass in the church is seen in the two windows in the ground floor stage of the Tower. It is Victorian and was put there in 1980. The window in the south wall of the chancel is good. It contains the Trinitarian Symbol and is a memorial to Charles Haselfoot 1863. The great west window is by Lavers Barraud and Westlake and is dated between 1870 and 1880. The stonework was restored in 1957 as part of war damage repairs. The third window from the west in the north aisle contains a small medallion of the Annunciation recovered from glass broken when the Church was damaged by bomb-blast in 1940. The fourth from the west is a memorial to Sir John Tyssen Tyrell, 1878. It portrays Christ healing the sick. It is of little merit. The same must be said of the west window in the north wall of the chancel. It is to Charles J. Tyrell, 1858. The subject is the Baptism of Christ. The other window in this wall is no better. It is in memory of John Roberts Spencer Phillips and Anna Maria, his wife, 1878. It shows Christ with Mary and Martha, the Empty Tomb, and Christ walking on the Sea. The east window, now of plain glass, the original being damaged during the war, retains its former inscription at the base:

"In memory of Charles John Way, M.A., Vicar of Boreham. Died November 9th, 1873. And of G. Gregory Way, B.N.I., murdered at Allahabad 6th June, 1857.”

About the year 1843 a covered way from the Porch to the road was erected by Colonel Tufnell Tyrell for the marriage of his daughter. The present Ambulatory, designed by Mr. A.Y. Nutt, is a memorial to Canon H.E. Hulton who died in 1923.

The pulpit is Victorian and has little to commend it apart from its simplicity. The lectern, with figures of the four Evangelists, was carved by Nevill Tufnell, an ancestor of the Tufnells of Langleys at Great Waltham. The carving of St. Andrew on the book desk may also be his work.

Among its other memorials the church has four Hatchments, three to the Haselfoot family, and one to Tyrell. The heraldry in them is well worth studying. Four Vicars: Marple, Newcomen, Butterfield and Bullock, are commemorated by large floor slabs. Note also the stone to Richard Collins, Harbinger to King Charles II. It was brought in from the churchyard. There are other interesting stones in the chancel and Sussex Chapel. The slabs at the east end of the north aisle were brought in from the churchyard in 1969.

The Screens are both a mixture of periods. The one under the Tower was put there in 1904. The upper part is of the fifteenth century, the rest is modern, carved by Mary Woodhouse, and put together by Mr. Knight, the village carpenter. It is not in its original position. A photograph of circa 1860 shows it at the east end, behind the Altar. The screen at the west end of the north aisle has mediaeval carving in the spandrels, the lower part has Tudor panelling, and may have come from the box-pews. The whole is framed in modern work.

ST ANDREW. The appearance from the street is most curious - more curious than beautiful. Nave and aisles, but the S aisle first narrow, and then, E of the S Porch (timber, with six-arched openings on the W and E sides) wider. Then the building recedes considerably so as to expose the sheer wall of the Norman tower, a central tower. The chancel follows, as narrow as the tower, but widening into the late C16 Sussex Chapel. On the N side which roughly, but far from exactly, corresponds to this chapel is the Tufnell Chapel of 1800.* The tower has a staircase in the thickness of the wall which projects into the interior, Norman windows on the ground floor to the N and S and a complete E arch of the plainest. Of the W arch the Roman brick voussoirs remain above the C14 chancel arch. Higher up are doorways to the E and W, and two-light windows to the N and S with a middle shaft with block capital. The bell-openings are similar but pointed. The battlements are brick. A pyramid roof crowns the tower. Chronologically the nave and S aisle - the narrower part - follow, see the W lancet of the S aisle, and the square chamfered arcade piers (also of the N arcade) and pointed only slightly chamfered arches, no doubt cut out of the solid Norman nave walls. Yet there is a Roman brick arch partly revealed in the E wall of the N aisle in line with the arcade which is hard to explain, unless the Norman nave was wider than it is now. The arch probably held a side altar. The S aisle has in its wider parts early C14 windows of two cusped lights with a cinquefoil in a circle above. The chancel is contemporary, as shown by the cusped lancet windows on the N and S. The N aisle windows are C15, large and plain, with panel tracery - three lights on the N, five lights on the W side. A five-light Perp window also at the W end of the nave. - FONT. Early C14, hexagonal, no distinction of stem and bowl, each side with a gabled blank cusped arch. - SCREENS. Under the E tower arch and at the W end of the N aisle. The latter very plain, the former with each division of three lights, the centre one wider and with a crocketed cusped ogee head. The top straight. - PLATE. Cup of 1699. - MONUMENT. To three Radclifs, Earls of Sussex, d. 1542, 1567, and 1583. Alabaster. All three recumbent on one tomb-chest. By Richard Stevens of Southwark, completed 1589.

BOREHAM. It is famous for a palace built by Henry the Eighth, still a great house, approached through a mile of limes. One of the finest homes in Essex, New Hall stands nearly 90 yards wide with two projecting wings and six bays. The splendour of the windows amazes us as we approach, and the spectacle of this wonderful facade brings up in the mind a picture of the pageantry of the days in which it came into being. It was part of the estate seized by the king from the father of Anne Boleyn after her head had fallen on Tower Hill, but most of the structure as we see it was built by Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, to whom the estate was given by Queen Elizabeth. There is a eulogy to her under the stone sundial on the parapet, above the great doorway flanked by pilasters and decorated with stars and porcupines.

On a painted stone panel are the arms of Henry the Eighth supported by a greyhound and a dragon, and the stone has an inscription telling us that Henry built this magnificent work. One of his gateways with two fine arches is still here. New Hall is now a convent, having been converted into a home for refugees from France in the l8th century, but into its history come many famous names. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, bought it for £30,000 and Oliver Cromwell for next-to-nothing, but Oliver liked it not and changed it for Hampton Court. The house thus passed to General Monk, who might have been King of England but brought back the Stuarts instead; having made the great sacrifice he lived here in splendour with his wife, the farrier’s daughter.

Here, long before their days, Henry had celebrated the Feast of St George and Merrie England, and here his two daughters lived after him. Here Mary Tudor entertained Lady Jane Grey, whose death warrant she was to sign a few years later, and here Elizabeth spent five days as queen.

There is an old house called Porters built 500 years ago, two 16th century farms, and the 18th century Boreham House facing a long lake flanked by a double row of elms. The church is mainly 13th and 14th century. It has a fine central tower standing much as the Normans left it, with Roman tiles framing their small windows, but with a 17th century parapet. The arch facing the nave shows the Roman tiles mixed with stones which the Normans used in their arch, and below them is a 14^th century arch. In the thickness of the walls of one corner of the tower runs a spiral stairway to the belfry. We come into the church through a porch with much medieval timber in its walls, the porch carried on to the gate as a shelter for the congregation.

The church is rich in fine possessions. In the Sussex Chapel lie three bearded Earls of Sussex in elaborate armour, the first a favourite courtier of Henry the Eighth, the second a Chief Justice under Mary Tudor, the third a patron of letters and a soldier. Their swords are broken and they have lost the metal chains once round their necks, but each one wears the garter, and at the feet of each is an ape in a quaint hat, while behind their cushioned heads are oxen wearing collars looking like crowns. There is a brass portrait of Alse Byng, an Elizabethan lady in a close-fitting cap and puffed sleeves kneeling with her family of six.

The font is 14th century, with panels of painted flowers in vases; there is medieval craftsmanship in a screen of six bays in the tower and a screen with twelve heads in the aisle; and also from medieval comes the scratch dial on a corner of the south wall.

A gift of the manor by Queen Elizabeth to a worthy servant made Boreham the home and last resting-place of the Radcliffes, Earls of Sussex. The family rising to power during the Wars of the Roses, the head of the house was made Baron Fitzwalter. His son joined the rising of Perkin Warbeck, and was beheaded. The title was revived in favour of his son Robert who, present at the coronation of Henry the Eighth and afterwards at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was created Earl of Sussex. He died Lord Chamberlain of England and was buried here.

The third earl, Thomas, was the crowning glory of the family, soldier, diplomatist, scholar, and friend of learning, whose second wife, Frances Sidney, aunt of Sir Philip, founded at Cambridge the Sidney Sussex College. His father having seen Henry crowned, Thomas saw him into the grave. From early manhood he was engaged in State affairs, seeking a French bride for Edward the Sixth and witnessing his will ; and he played a leading part in bringing about the marriage of Mary Tudor with Philip of Spain.

He took part in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, who made him Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, his duty now being to impose the Protestant faith on that country. With insufficient forces, and his difficulties aggravated by the enmity of the Earl of Leicester, he achieved practically nothing. Returning to England he played with skill and clemency a difficult part in suppressing the Northern Rebellion, and was entrusted with two missions concerning the projected marriage of Elizabeth.

Highly trusted by the Queen, who had made him Lord Chamberlain, he accompanied her on triumphal progresses, and in 1573 received from her the gift of Boreham and other manors. Dying in 1583, he was succeeded by his brother Henry, fourth earl, who in the course of troublous days in Ireland was imprisoned and almost brought to bankruptcy in the service of the Crown. As Governor of Portsmouth he was responsible for equipping ships to fight the Armada. He died in 1593, and sleeps here. The fifth earl inherited family debts incurred in State service, and appealed for a post which would enable him to die abroad in the service of the Queen rather than languish in poverty at home. Although impoverished, he won fame as a scholar and friend of learning. Chapman dedicated a sonnet to him, prefacing the translation of Homer which was later to inspire the immortal sonnet of Keats. Present at the inauguration of Charles Stuart as Prince of Wales, and at his coronation, he died in 1629, and rests here with his ancestors. The title passed to his cousin Edward, and expired with him 300 years ago.

Flickr set.

Berners Roding

It took me ages to find All Saints and when I did it was to find it in a sadly dilapidated state and appears to slowly falling down. Not surprisingly it was locked, it's probably too dangerous to go into anyway. The church is de-consecrated, owned by the local farm and the churchyard is a conservation area managed by Epping county council.

The precise origins of the church are unknown, but there are elements of the building that date back to the 14th Century. The Chancel and the Nave of the church are of an unknown date, but the east and west walls are known to be 16th Century in date. The church did at one time have a tower that held a single bell. (Built by John Dyer in 1594).  In the book “The Buildings of England – Essex” by Nikolaus Pevsner, he makes reference to the church and describes it with a weather-boarded belfry with pyramid roof. Pevsner's survey of Essex was evidently carried out before the winter of 1953/54, and the book was first published in 1954. It follows the tower must have been pulled down post 1953.

The church itself is Grade 2 listed, but unfortunately is in a poor state of repair. The north nave wall is structurally unsound and this has led to the buildings inclusion on the Essex buildings at risk register.

The churchyard has a badger sett in and around some south-east graves - rather disturbing for those supposedly resting in peace!

This is one of the rare places that Arthur Mee failed to report on - perhaps it was too small for him to notice.

CHURCH. Nave and chancel, and weatherboard belfry with pyramid roof. Two early C16 brick windows in the chancel. - The chancel has a tiebeam with kingpost and four-way struts. Nicely moulded wall-plates. - PLATE. Cup of 1627.

 

Flickr set. 

Simon K. 

Abandoned and derelict church on the remote Berners Hall estate.

In 1911, my great-great-aunt Julia Mortlock was a cook at Berners Hall. By then, it was inhabited by James, Charles and Caroline Glasse, two brothers and a sister from Morwenstowe in Cornwall. There was only one other servant. By 1919, the farm had been sold to the Co-op, who still own it today. I believe the grounds have a famous carp lake.

Wormingford

St Andrew is the last of my 'archive' postings from henceforth posts will be from churches I have recently visited.

A lovely mellow yellow set in a lovely churchyard but sadly with no guide, so I almost missed the two brasses in the tower, it's not a typical Essex church - I suspect a Suffolk influence at work here.

It sits on a height above the middle reaches of the River Stour, and is very beautiful. Just below is Smallbridge Hall, where Sir William Waldegrave entertained Elizabeth I. On the distant horizon opposite is Arger Fen nature reserve, and the hill upon which Edmund was crowned King of East Anglia on Christmas Day, 856, and, marked by the BBC television mast, the old farmhouse where Martin Shaw composed his hymn 'Hills of the north, rejoice!'.

The church is one of twelve in the neighbourhood which are dedicated to the apostle Andrew. St Andrew dedications were given to churches built near water.

North of the gate are the tombs of John Constable's Uncle Abram and Aunt Mary, and their children, 'The Wormingford Folk', as the artist described them in his letters home. By the far hedge, the grave of John Nash, R.A., who painted this landscape over many years, and his wife the artist Christine Kuhlenthal.

The tower is early 12th century, limestone, with Roman brick quoins. The Roman bricks may have come from a local villa or from Colchester. There are vast numbers of them in the district. They make fine corners. The tower is of three stages and is topped with a 17th century brick parapet and pinnacles. The windows, also made of Roman brick, are 12th century.

The porch is chiefly Victorian (1870) but contains the re-set 15th century archway of the earlier porch. The doorway is late 14th century. Above it may be seen the arch of the original 12th century entrance, and by the side a medieval stoup.

The Nave and north arcade of four bays are 14th century. The octagonal columns have moulded capitals and bases. The south wall contains three 14th century windows, much restored, and a blocked 12th century window. The north Aisle is 14th century with a 16th century camber beam roof. The Nave roof is among the most remarkable feats of Victorian carpentry. Made of resinous softwood, it is said to be a replica of the mediaeval roof it replaced in 1870. It is decorated with a great many thin panels of pierced tracery which lend it an airy elegance.

ST ANDREW. Norman W tower with original windows and bell-openings. Norman nave with one blocked S window. The N aisle and N windows early C14. Arcade of four bays with smallish octagonal piers and arches with two quadrant mouldings. - STAINED GLASS. C14 bits in chancel windows. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup with band of ornament. - BRASSES. Civilian c. 1450; Civilian and two wives, early C17; both in the floor under the tower.

WORMINGFORD. A century ago they moved its mysterious mound and discovered hundreds of urns in parallel rows, grim relics, perhaps, of the 9th Roman Legion cut off at the Stour while marching to support their army against Boadicea. Moated houses bear witness to the troublous times of a later era, and even the 17th century homestead Garnons has traces of an outer enclosure. This house has five neighbours as old as itself, and there are many pretty cottages amid beautiful scenery. Church House is Tudor, and so is Church Hall, a delightful building with brick chimneys looking on the entrance to the beautiful churchyard.

The church has a 15th century bell in its Norman tower, which has a 17th century parapet but Roman tiles in the corners. The Norman nave has two of its original windows blocked with Roman bricks. The porch has a 15th century arch through which we come to a fine little nave arcade 200 years older, its pointed arches on eight-sided pillars. The aisle is 13th century, but has a Tudor roof. The chancel was made new in the 14th century, its arch crossed by a modern screen into which has been worked some 500-year-old carving (which is no longer extant). A window on the sunny side has a tiny Tudor shield and a 14th century roundel, and in the opposite wall is some delightful 14th century glass with floral borders and nine roundels.

In the floor of the tower is a 15th century brass of a civilian in long gown and pointed shoes, and of the next century is the brass of a praying man with his two wives in big hats and frilled sleeves. By the chancel arch hangs a thank offering for those who safely returned from the Great War, a painting of a ship being welcomed to harbour, "the haven where they would be."

In the churchyard is a font bowl filled with fuchsias, foreign flowers which would have astonished the medieval maker of the font.

Simon K -
 

Open. The village is large and ordinary, but as at Boxted the church is in a hamlet a mile or so off, and what an idyllic spot it is! The church is beautiful, flint and red brick and pink septaria glowing in the afternoon sun, surrounded by Horse chestnuts and holly trees. It is utterly delightful, and immediately joined my list of churchyards I'd be prepared to be buried in. The artist John Nash is against the western hedge, the Vale dropping away steeply beyond.

Inevitably, the interior is an anti-climax, a thorough-going restoration of the 1890s with nothing old surviving (though Pevsner reports a brass which I couldn't find*) but I still liked it a great deal indeed. A lovely setting. This is Ronald Blythe's church, by the way. His weekly column in the Church Times is called 'The Word from Wormingford'.

*I've since learned it is under the tower.

Flickr set.

Wimbish

All Saints is lovely but understandably locked as it is fairly isolated, however a sign states that it is open at weekends but each time I've gone back it has been locked. Perseverance might one day pay off, we'll wait and see.

UPDATE: Having visited Radwinter last Saturday I came back via Wimbish in the forlorn hope that it might be open and to my astonishment finally gained access. A very nice lady was flower arranging and let me photograph the interior.

It's a nice church with good screens, a very early brass - I think the earliest I've seen but I'd need to check that - and a strange stair doorway close to the south door - if it's a rood screen door it's in a funny place - in what appears to be a Norman window.

If for no other reason I liked the interior since it led me to putting Mary Wiseman in my family tree.

ALL SAINTS. Norman nave (see one S window and the S doorway, with two orders of columns, one of them spiral-carved and with volute capitals, the other smooth and with one-scallop capitals; both have plaited rings below the capitals). The C13 made alterations to this Norman nave, but it is not easy to understand them. The only evidence is a blank pointed arcade outside, just above the Norman window. What was its purpose? Inside, the N arcade is also C13. It has quatrefoil piers and double hollow-chamfered arches. N aisle and S porch C15. Chancel 1868, W tower taken down in 1883 and not yet rebuilt. The N aisle roof is dated 1534 in one of the graceful tracery spandrels of the braces. - SCREEN to the N chapel; one-light divisions with ogee heads and mouchettes above; C15.- MONUMENT. Sir John de Wantone d. 1347 and wife. An unusual and delightful piece. Two small brasses, only 18 in. long, both in the elegant, swaying attitudes of that age. The figures are set in the head of an octofoil cross. The style is very similar to that of the most accomplished of English brasses, that of Sir Hugh. Hastings at Elsing in Norfolk (d. 1347).

WIMBISH. It has many fine farm buildings round about; one of them, Tiptofts, has remarkable timbers 600 years old and stands within the waters of a moat. Inside its hall are wooden columns to support the massive tiebeam of the kingpost roof; and the original 14th century roofs are also over the buttery and solar wings. With its great brick chimney added 200 years later, the house is a rare example of an ancient English home. Broad Oaks is a moated manor house of Tudor brick, with graceful chimneys and handsome windows of stone. Within are doors and panelling of the 17th century, and a stone fireplace of about 1560.

The church is in a lovely setting of trees, and has nave walls and a little window of the 12th century. Of about the same age is the handsome doorway, protected by a 15th century porch whose upper room is reached by a stairway in the thickness of the wall. The double door has been opening and shutting since Henry the Seventh was on the throne. Handsome columns have been standing in the nave for 700 years; a board painted with texts and commandments was here before the Spanish Armada sailed; and the Tudor roof of the aisle has a fine rose in one spandrel, balanced by the arabic figures 1534. Two 14th century screens are very finely traceried, and from the same age are some glass flowers and shields and yellow leopards. Here are two of the oldest brass portraits in Essex. They show Sir John de Wautone of 1347 and his Ellen, he looking much as a warrior at Crecy must have looked, his lady very gracefully dressed. The portraits are set in the head of a cross, the only impress of a brass cross in the county; and below is the impress of an elephant, the badge of the Beaumont family.

Simon K -

All Saints, Wimbish, Essex

Locked, but a notice said welcome to our church, you may step in and enjoy the peace or somesuch, so I guess they had already locked it.

Pleasantly set in a a farmyard away from the road, looking its major restoration from without, but it sounds interesting within. It is actually at the edge of the village of Radwinter.

I was taken by a sudden whim to head on to Sturmer and Birdbrook, both of which would surely have been locked for the night, and get the train from Bury or Sudbury. But fortunately sweet reason prevailed and I turned west again to Saffron Walden and Audley End station.

I got the 1745, arriving Cambridge at 1808 and had another 40 minutes heel-kicking before the train home to Ipswich. I'd visited 17 churches, 13 in Essex and 4 in Hertfordshire, most of them open, though not all. It is the most churches I have visited in a single day for nearly a year. Total distance cycled about 60 miles.

Flickr set.

Willingale

Willingale is another of those extraordinary villages that has two churches just yards from each other, one St Andrew and All Saints, under the auspices of the CCT, is open while the other, St Christopher, is firmly locked.

Long before the Normans arrived in Essex, Willingale (the ‘nook of Willa's people’) was an Anglo-Saxon estate in the Roding valley at the southern extremity of the Dunmow hundred. The advent of the Normans caused it to be parcelled out to several manorial lords. Later, two parishes were formed; the larger became Willingale Doe and comprised the manors of Wantons (now Wardens Hall) and Torrells Hall, and the smaller became Willingale Spain and comprised the manors of Spains Hall and Mynchyns (later Minsons)

Both parishes took their names from early manorial proprietors, the de Ou and de Ispania families respectively and it is probably due to their patronage that the churches of St Christopher, Willingale Doe, and St Andrew, Willingale Spain, were built. It is not known why they were placed so that their churchyards adjoined to form a single area, with St Christopher at the north end, St Andrews at the south and the parish boundary bisecting the ground between them, but it is said to have been the result of rivalry between two thegns or of family pride. Alternatively it may have been that, at an early date, land holdings in both parishes became fragmented, or parish boundaries so convoluted, that convenience or common sense dictated that the parish churches should be sited side by side. This position certainly provides a superb setting for them, with fine views from the churchyard across the Roding Valley. Until the benefices were united in 1929, each of the churches had its own parish priest and congregation.

St Andrew and All Saints, Willingale Spain, to give the church its full title, has, like its sister church survived a long and cyclic history of building, decay repair and restoration; in the late 1950s, however, it had become almost ruinous and was only saved by the supporting action of the Friends of Friendless Churches. Subsequently, grants from the Friends of Essex Churches and funds raised by the Friends of St Andrew kept the church in good repair. In November 1992 it was vested in what is now The Churches Conservation Trust, to be maintained and conserved by and for the Church and the Nation. Extensive repairs were carried out between 1993 and 1995 under the supervision of Mr Simon Marks, the Trusts appointed architect for this church.

The joint dedication to St Andrew and All Saints is somewhat unusual. It is possible that the church was originally dedicated to St Andrew and that a second altar, used by a chantry priest, was dedicated to All Saints.

WILLINGALE DOE and WILLINGALE SPAIN are two adjoining parishes. Their churches are so placed as to adjoin also. They share the same churchyard, St Christopher Willingale Doe lying on its N, St Andrew Willingale Spain on its S side. St Christopher is the larger church. It has a W tower (with diagonal buttresses and battlements), whereas St Andrew has only a belfry.

ST ANDREW is the older church. The nave has in the N wall two Norman windows and a plain Norman doorway, in the S wall one window and a doorway. These and the quoins make much use of Roman bricks. The chancel is C15, as is the belfry resting on a tiebeam carried by two posts with arched braces. - FONT. Octagonal, C14, with traceried stem and quatrefoils carrying, roses and heads. - DOOR in N doorway, with uncommonly extensive C12 ironwork, divers long stems with leaves besides the usual scrolled strap-hinges. - PLATE. Cup, Paten, and Flagon of 1766.

ST CHRISTOPHER is terribly restored. The exterior has no untouched features, and the whole N aisle with its arcade also belong to the restoration of 1853. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with traceried stem and quatrefoils carrying shields. - HELM (chancel, N wall) C16. - MONUMENTS. Brass to Thomas Torrell d. 1442, Knight in armour, the figure 3 ft long. - Two Brasses of 1582 and 1613 in the N aisle and nave. - Robert Wiseman d. 1641 and Richard Wiseman d. 1618 and his wife d. 1635. Large monument with semi-reclining figure flanked by two and behind a third column. Above the entablature carried by these, two kneeling figures facing each other. They kneel under two arches. Achievement on a third arch standing on the other two.

St Andrew and All Saints

St Christopher

 

WILLINGALE. It is Willingale Spain and Willingale Doe, probably the villages of rival Norman knights whose friendliness is all forgotten but whose rivalry remains, for still their two churches are in one churchyard, a curious sight.

Willingale Doe has one thing left from its Norman builders, the capital of a pillar piscina set in the 14th century wall of the nave; Willingale Spain’s walls stand much as the Norman knight built them, with a rugged simplicity and patches of red Roman tiles at one of the corners and in two doorways.

Willingale Doe, if we count its 15th century tower, is bigger by 20 feet. It has an ancient curly head on the gable outside, and, inside, the medieval font at which would be baptised the children of Thomas Torrell, whose portrait is in brass in the chancel; his little dog is at his feet. On a wall-monument of Charles Stuart’s time rests Richard Wiseman and his wife, he bearded and in plate armour minutely carved in alabaster ; the sculpture is framed in marble columns, resting on lions with a quaint sea-horse between them. We noticed also a comic sea-horse on a 16th century helmet hanging on the chancel wall. The pulpit has linenfold panels, a worthy rostrum for old John Swain, a rector of our own time who died at 91, lying here with his wife who died at 94.

Willingale Spain has always been proud of the work of its smiths on two of its church doors. The grotesque heads of serpents on one door in the nave have survived the timbers on which the Normans fastened them, and the strap-hinges on the priest’s door are fine examples of medieval forge work. The posts for the timber turret piercing the high-pitched roof are 15th century, and one of the bells is older still. The chancel, made new 500 years ago, has a curious home-made monument of wood and parchment, more appealing than much of the pretentious alabaster of its day. It is a simple wooden frame with folding doors on which are crudely painted two shields-of-arms with the record of the six sons of Edward Bewsy. They lived in the days of Charles Stuart, and here their father set their names, the dates of their deaths, eagles on their coats-of-arms,and a rhyme which ends:

Six lie here shaken from the tree,
Where eagles frequent are, dead bodies be.

Widdington

St Mary is a perfectly average, restored Essex church pleasantly situated in the heart of the pretty village of Widdington. It has some old glass, a rather nice brass and some monuments, all in all run of the mill but pleasant enough.

ST MARY. Nave and chancel, and W tower of 1771, rebuilt in 1872. Of the same time the large imitation Perp windows on the N and S sides. The E window however and the chancel S window are original early C14 work. Inside one notices an earlier history of the chancel. There is one Norman N window and there is the surround of the Dec S window which is of c. 1260, with shafts, much dog tooth decoration and good stiff-leaf capitals. - SCREEN. By Sir Guy Dawber, 1907. By the same WAR MEMORIAL, a simple oval tablet with good lettering. - STAINED GLASS. Sundial dated 1664 in a N window. - PLATE. Cup of 1562 with two bands of ornament; Paten and Almsdish probably late C17. - BRASS to a Civilian, feet missing, C14.

WIDDINGTON. A small village with a pleasant green near the source of Cambridge’s river, its oldest possession is a Norman window in the church, opening to a 15th century vestry. The church has been much restored, and its tower has been rebuilt with bold gargoyles and handsome pinnacles, but it has kept treasures from all the great centuries. Behind the altar is a 14th century window with fine carving about it, a grotesque head with foliage coming from its mouth and a bird eating fruit. Another window has the shields of France and England in 14th century glass, and a medallion of 1664 showing a sundial and an hourglass. There is a piscina 700 years old, and a brass portrait of a civilian who lived before America was on the map. The oak doors and their ironwork in the porch are notable, and are said to be 15th century.

Widdington Hall not far away is now a farm, and goes back to the 15th century. Beside it is a Tudor barn; but an even finer barn belongs to Prior’s Hall, a farmhouse whose stone walls behind the plaster are believed to be almost as old as Magna Carta. The barn has eight bays, side aisles, and gables with foiled bargeboards.

Flickr set.

Wicken Bonhunt - St Margaret

St Margaret was locked but with a keyholder listed; unfortunately I didn't have time to seek out the key so a re-visit is probably on the cards.

ST MARGARET. Chancel C13, see some windows, especially the one high up in the E gable and the S window which is shafted inside. The rest of the church was built in 1858-9 and designed by John Hanson Sperling. - PLATE. Small Cup of 1571. - MONUMENT. J. S. Bradbury d. 1731, signed by H. Scheemakers. Relief scene flanked by volutes on the l. and r. showing Mr Bradbury rising up with open arms and cherubs above and beside him.

WICKEN BONHUNT. Its church, with a dainty spire, watches over a charming cottage group, with fine elms close by and Wicken Hall next door, an Elizabethan house with a handsome chimney stack. But those who come from Newport will pass an older shrine at Bonhunt Farm, a little Norman chapel with a roof of thatch. It was called St Helen’s, and is less than 40 feet long, its chancel only 10 feet wide. Here still are five Norman windows, one of them circular, a filled-up Norman doorway, a scratch dial close by, and a pillar piscina built into a window.

Nothing in the village church is quite so old as these simple walls, unless it be the rough square bowl of the font. But it has a 13th century chancel, and two of its old possessions are like those of the chapel, a scratch dial and a piscina. The chancel has also kept some of its lancet windows, a small seat for the priest, and a monument with a figure of a woman and cherubs in memory of little John Bradbury who died in 1693. He was the heir of his family, who lived not far away at Brick House, a handsome Tudor building with two imposing gables. A sculptured figure in Roman dress is at a corner of one of them, and a stone bust is over the entrance. With the house is a thatched barn of the 17th century.

Simon K -

Closed, converted into a community centre. An interesting story - this is a bog standard little 19th Century church with few redeeming features other than its delectable setting on a slope behind the village pub, but in the 1850s the Vicar here was John Hanson Sperling, who was an antiquarian and writer about the medieval churches of Shropshire.

He tore down the old church and rebuilt it entirely to his own designs. Unfortunately for us, this included destroying East Anglia's most westerly complete round tower. 'Perhaps he thought he knew what he was doing", writes James Bettley in the revised BoE, 'but the result is lifeless, with surprising lapses - the chancel is lower than the nave, there is no vestry (!) and there was a stove in the chancel beside the priest's chair.' You can still see the chimney for the last.

Sperling's tower was itself replaced after becoming dangerous in the early 20th Century, so we lost a round tower for nothing. The church is not redundant, it has simply changed use, and I believe is still used for some evangelical form of worship.

The furnishings have been dispersed except for the font and the altar, and the only thing of importance here, GF Bodley's banner for the Guild of St Margaret, is now on the wall at Arkesden, where I had photographed it that morning.

But this was a pleasant spot to sit and eat lunch in the full sunshine, before heading back towards Clavering and turning off on to a steep, steep narrow lane which climbed to the top of the ridge and I was the highest I had been all day. I could see the planes landing and taking off at Stanstead in the valley, some six miles away. The lane spiralled down and there, in the middle of nowhere, was Rickling parish church.

Flickr.

White Roding

St Martin was locked with no sign of a keyholder, a sadly normal event in these parts. The exterior and setting are pleasant; I liked it. Interestingly Mee refers to a C16th lead spire which is no longer extant - either it went towards the war effort or, more likely, somebody nicked it...perhaps that's why its locked, although locking a church does not protect its spire.

ST MARTIN. Norman nave with Roman brick quoins, two plain doorways, some original windows and a plain one-stepped chancel arch. Chancel E.E. with a simple recess in the N wall W tower c. 1500 with diagonal buttresses, battlements, and recessed lead spire. - S DOOR with some C13 iron work. - FONT. Norman, square, of Purbeck marble with zigzag decoration and incised concentric circles in the spandrels on the top.

Flickr set.

WHITE RODING. It has something from every century since the Conqueror; all of them have given some little thing of interest or beauty to the simple church by the mill. It has something, indeed, much older than the Conqueror, for a walk under a bower of trees with their roots beneath the rectory moat brings us to walls with Roman bricks in them; they are at the corners of the nave. This is how we may put the time-table of the centuries in this interesting little church.

11th. Then were built the arches and the tiny windows.

12th. Now the font was carved, a hoary square bowl with rough zigzags, and perhaps a Norman mason carved the five consecration crosses on the altar stone.

13th. The ironwork of the south door was wrought with the drop-handle which twenty generations have used.

14th. During this century were carved two weird figures looking down on the sanctuary, one resting his chin on his arms, one gripping his hair as if distraught.

15th. The carpenters of this century fashioned the roof, and the glass workers gave a window a roundel of coloured glass.

16th. The villagers realised that they had a splendid chance for a tower, and up it went, three stages of it with battlements from which a lead spire rises.

17th. The old men gathered for a chat in their handsome new porch, listening to the live bells at the time of the Great Fire of London, the bells that ring today.

18th. The curious chest and the altar table came.

19th. Now was added a new vestry, and the church was restored.

20th. To this time we must be grateful for the lovely roses blooming in the churchyard.

A constant friend to its church this village has been, and an old friend to the village has been the medieval house known as Colville Hall. It is half a mile away, one of those red brick homes which began to spring up over the countryside when the devastating Wars of the Roses ended at Bosworth Field. It has a low gable and pinnacles and has been enriched by mullioned windows in which are ten roundels of glass painted with the occupations of the months.

White Notley, Essex

St Etheldreda was locked with no sign of a keyholder, a fate shared with a string of churches in this combined parish, which is a shame as Mee makes it sound interesting. I have to admit though that the exterior left me cold.

CHURCH (Dedication unknown). Nave and aisles under one big roof. Narrower chancel. The chancel arch is the only at once visible feature of the Norman age. It is dressed with Roman bricks. To its l. and r. two round-headed niches. Traces of a Norman doorway in the S wall of the chancel can also be detected. The chancel was re-modelled in the C13, see the lancet windows so far as original. The S aisle and S arcade are of c. 1250. Circular piers and double-chamfered arches. The N aisle and N arcade a little later, with the same arches but octagonal piers. C14 S porch with plainly cusped bargeboarding. C15 belfry on four posts, with cusped arched braces on polygonal shafts high up. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, traceried stem, bowl with quatrefoils with leaves or grotesque heads; DOOR. C14, traceried. - SCREENS. N and S aisles, E end. Both of no special interest. -chest. Big dug-out, with bevelled lid, c13? - STAINED GLASS. Upper half of the figure of a King, C13.

WHITE NOTLEY. It has lost the great water mill which stood by the lovely Tudor hall, but there is still its big pond, with a deep ditch beside it. The brick and timber house has a delightful aspect with irregular gables, fine windows, and Tudor chimneys.Yet the village has something more remarkable than anything it has lost, for its church has come from three of our historic ages; it is Roman and Saxon and Norman. We come into it through a 14th century porch and a pointed wooden arch fronted with a decorated bargeboard, and the aisles, the nave arcades, and the end of the chancel are by the first English builders of the 13th century; but the Normans had made so effective a chancel arch with Roman tiles that the re-builders left it for us, though they did demolish the tiny apse of which traces have been discovered.

The Norman masons shaped a Saxon headstone into one of their window-frames, and it has been made into a window-frame now in the vestry, with one of the rarest glass portraits in the county set in it. The portrait is of a crowned saint holding a book, a gem of colour preserved for 700 years; it has yellow fleur-de-lys as a background. The villagers are also very proud of two 16th century rondels in a modern dormer window, one showing a lovely child. The 14th century tracery in some windows is of elaborate design, and the stone faces are perhaps of local celebrities. The font is by a craftsman of the 15th century, who panelled its stem and set bearded faces, foliage, and shields on the bowl.

The oldest woodwork is a dug-out chest with a heavy lid older than Magna Carta. The door, with a traceried top, is 14th century, and so are the rafter roof of the chancel and the pent roofs of the aisles. Both aisles have traceried screens of great beauty, one 15th century and the other 16th, each only eight feet wide but with five bays. The end of the nave is filled with the massive beams set up in the 16th century to support the bell-turret, which rises without a break into a short shingled spire.

From White Notley in the persecuting days of Mary Tudor went forth its great hero George Searles, to die in the fires of martyrdom at Stratford-le-Bow. There had just been laid in the churchyard when we called a parish clerk aged 92, who was believed to be the oldest parish clerk in England, having served White Notley as clerk and sexton for 70 years. He was Joseph Challis.

White Colne

It took me ages to find St Andrew, tucked away off the road and hidden by trees, and I only found it by reversing my route. It is so isolated that I was fully expecting externals only but to my delight it was open. My delight was not due to an earth shattering interior, it is plain to the extreme, but merely that its openness restores some of my faith in church custodians.

In truth St Andrew is nothing to write home about (or probably blog about) but I liked both its simplicity and its situation and, as the last visit of the day, it was a welcome treat and one of the nicest churches of the day.

ST ANDREW. So thoroughly restored in 1869 by C. J. Moxon that nothing of interest remains outside. Inside behind the pulpit three odd niches, the taller central one pointed, the Norman, square, of Purbeck marble with zigzag decoration and incised concentric circles in the spandrels on the top.

WHITE COLNE. Its two best possessions are a pulpit and a chair, treasured in a church whose walls are probably 800 years old. The chair is 16th century, rich with flowers, a shield-of-arms, and a lamb with a flag. The pulpit is a splendid piece of Jacobean work, finely ornamented with figures in three panels. We see St James the Great with a staff and a gourd, St Augustine of Hippo with a mitre and crozier, and Charity carrying a babe who holds an orb in one hand and blesses us with the other. Between the panels are pilasters enriched with jewel ornament, and among the decorations of the cornice are two human masks. The church has Roman bricks at its corners, and a high and narrow chancel arch 600 years old. Its companions in the churchyard are several handsome oaks. Here stands Fox and Pheasant Farm, built in Cromwell’s time, with a fox and a pheasant on one of its fireplaces. It has sent treasures of the soil to Colchester Museum, urns and other fragments from a Celtic burial ground discovered in 1924.

Simon K -

I had come this way a few days earlier. Deceived by a brief burst of sunshine, I had set off from Pebmarsh church for dear old Chappel and Wakes Colne station a few miles further south, and decided to take in White Colne on the way.

Well, I am ever one to exaggerate the narrowness, hilliness and windiness of lanes of north Essex, not to mention their surface water, but the lanes (if you will refer to your OS map) in the area bounded by Halstead, Pebmarsh, Bures and Chappel are something else again. Fortunately, I didn't meet a single car between leaving the last church and reaching the next one, but it did start to rain again, really heavily, and I was pretty soon the wettest I'd been.

I arrived at All Saints and found it locked with a keyholder notice.

If I'd told you then that this was a solidly built but over-restored little church with a west tower surmounted by a broach spire then I'd probably have been right, but I wouldn't have been able to swear to it. Visibility was poor, I was soaked and the rain was intense, and so I was in no mood to go looking for a keyholder who might or might not be in.

Besides, the notice said that the church was Open every Tuesday and Wednesday from 9am to 3pm. I'll come back on Tuesday, I thought! A train left C&WC in 15 minutes, and I planned to be on it.

I came back three days later in the last sunshine of a fine but fading afternoon. The little building looked well across the fields, gazing across the valley with the smoke of Chappel and Wakes Colne below. I pushed my bike enthusiastically up to the door.

Locked. I'd say I couldn't quite believe it, but see Kelvedon. I rang the lady.

"But it can't be locked!" she remonstrated. "He opens it at eight, and then locks it again on his way home at four!" I told her that, nonetheless, it was locked. "Oh for goodness sake," she said, "I'll be there in a minute". But she was very nice, and it turned out that her exasperation was with the failed unlocker and not with me.

This is a prettier church inside than out, with the definitive feel of a small Victorian rural church interior. It has been recently redecorated, so it also benefits from a cool Anglican freshness. The curiosity is the pulpit, which appears to be 17th century, but has contemporary Flemish panels attached to it, and is thus most unusual. I hope it does not sound harsh if I say that I liked this church more than it probably deserved, but I did like it. I sat for a while in the absolute silence until it was broken by a sad blackbird in the bushes outside, and then headed for Chappel and Wakes Colne Station for the train home.

Flickr Set.

Wethersfield

St Mary Magdalene is an architectural melting pot with a quirky tower but is, I think, really rather attractive. It doesn't hurt that she sits on a knoll, in the middle of the village, grandly surveying all around her.

The name "Wethersfield" preserves that of Wutha, one of the many Vikings who crossed the North Sea in the 8th to 10th centuries, landed at Mersea, and then with their families came up the valley of the River Pant. It was he who made a clearing in the ancient forest, and it was given his name. [The Saxon word ‘feld’ = clearing, hence Wutha’s feld].

In all probability a Saxon Church was built on the present site and it is considered that the north-west wall of the Nave abutting the Tower may contain some pre-conquest work.

The oldest part of the Church now standing is the massive tower, nearly 28 feet (9 metres) square on the outside. It was erected before the year 1200 at a time when round Norman arches were giving way to the pointed style. It is said to have been the gift of a wealthy parishioner, Henry de Cornhill. According to some authorities the Tower was reduced in height in the 17th century, but others consider that the bell-openings, being where they are, prove that it was not intended to be higher. The spire, of a rarer almost Germanic shape, is modern.

The Church built at the same time as the Tower, consisted of the present nave, without side aisles, and a small chancel. The foundations of that building were revealed during the Victorian restoration. The south aisle and arcade were added in the 13th century; and, about the year 1340, the north aisle and arcade were added, and the chancel enlarged to its present size. The later date of the north arcade is evidenced by the octagonal pillars with their delicately moulded capitals. At this time the roof would have been steeply pitched, the tops of the walls being a little higher than the points of the arches. the clerestory was added in the 15th century, and restored in the 17th century.

The building was extensively restored in 1874 to 1876(for once the results of these improvements are not too horrific), when the vicar’s vestry and organ chamber were added on the south side of the chancel. An early 14th century window from the south side of the chancel was reset as the east window of the vestry.

Before this 19th century restoration the building was in a bad state of repair, particularly the chancel. It had been used as a school for some time and had then become derelict.

Wethersfield Church is fortunate in having two porches. The one to the South Door dates from the late 14th or early 15th century. It was restored in 1986, previous repairs having been badly affected by severe winter weather. The North Porch, built later, was rebuilt in brick in 1750. The disused font in the South Porch is from the 15^th century.

The recumbent alabaster figures on the tomb in the Chancel had long been considered to be of Henry Wentworth and his first wife, Elizabeth. He was the second son of Sir Roger Wentworth of Nettleshead in Suffolk and the first of his family to settle in Essex. He lived at Codham Hall in the extreme south of the Parish and died in 1482. This identification has been disputed on the grounds that the figure is wearing a Tabard - almost a symbol of Tudor times; and that his hair is cut square across the forehead in a Tudor fashion. It has now been suggested that the effigy is of another Sir Roger Wentworth who died in 1539. The funery helm, set high on the North wall of the Chancel is, according to a note given by the late Dr Charles R Beard to the late F.H. Cripps Day (the compiler of several books on Church armour) associated with the funeral of this latter Sir Roger Wentworth. There are some sketches of it in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The list of incumbents, on the wall near the South Door, omits (perhaps significantly) any mention of Commonwealth appointments. There is no entry between ‘Tennison’ (father of a future Archbishop of Canterbury) who became Vicar in 1642 (Archbishop Laud was executed in 1645), and ‘Clarke’ who was instituted to the living in 1660 - the year in which the Throne of England was restored under Charles II.

Patrick Bronte served his first curacy in Wethersfield from 1806 to 1808. He lived in St George’s House, which still stands opposite the Church. He moved to Yorkshire where Branwell, Emily Aime and Charlotte were born.

ST MARY MAGDALENE AND ST MARY THE VIRGIN. Low massive early C13 W tower without buttresses. Small lancet windows, bell-openings of two lights separated by a polygonal shaft. Their existence in the place where they are proves that the tower was not meant to be taller. Short shingled spire of a rare, rather German than English shape. Early C14 chancel, see the E window with reticulated tracery (also the re-set E window in the C19 Vestry) and the blank arcading, low N recess, and Piscina inside the chancel. The N and (renewed) S aisle windows are late C14 - straightheaded with the Early Perp version of reticulation (cf. Shalford). The interior confirms the date of the tower; low, unmoulded, but pointed arch towards the nave. It also introduces a new period. The S arcade is clearly C13, but probably later than the tower. Circular piers and double-chamfered arches, and the E respond with stiff-leaf on a defaced head-corbel. The N arcade is yet later; octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches, but a short vertical piece first, rising from the capitals and dying into the arch. That goes with the date of the aisles. - C15 clerestory and nave roof. - SCREEN. Quite tall, of one-light divisions, each with an ogee arch and panel tracery above. - STAINED GLASS. Many fragments, in various windows, mostly C14, though also C15. - PLATE. Paten of 1561; Cup of 1561(?), both richly chased. - MONUMENTS. Possibly Henry Wentworth d. 1482 and wife. Tomb-chest with alabaster effigies, not of high quality. - Mott Family, c. 1760, one of the many, often very fine, and hardly ever signed Rococo tablets of various marbles which occur in Home County churches. Urn above, as usual, and cherub’s head below. - Joseph Clarke d. 1790, by E. Tomson, large tablet, also of various marbles.

Flickr set.

WETHERSFIELD. Some of the houses of this big village are very old, projecting over the street with gables enriched by carved bargeboards. They have a quaintness all their own; in a thatched cottage which was a chapel in medieval days is the relic of a piscina, now used to make a window.

The tower of the church begins with Norman windows and grows younger with pointed ones as it rises to a square wooden lantern, then to a copper-covered spire, adding to the curious effect by hanging one of its bells outside. Part of the nave wall is so thick that it may be Saxon, but nothing else so old is left. Two doors have been swinging here 600 years, one in a 15th century porch; the nave has round columns of the 13th century and octagonal ones of the 14th; the clerestory is 15th century with a Tudor roof; and on each side of the 14th century chancel are stone seats in recesses with pointed arches. With them are two sedilia and a finely decorated piscina. A remarkable corbel was first carved as a woman’s head, but her face has been turned into a flower. The traceried screen is 15th century and so is a font no longer used. Among fragments of old glass in the windows is a striking head with a yellow beard and the name Daniel above it; it has been here 600 years.

The most striking monument is a richly panelled tomb with sleeping figures of Henry Wentworth and his wife as they were in the 15th century. He is in armour with his feet on a unicorn, and she wears an elaborate necklace of roses; but the tomb is pathetically disfigured with names and initials scratched on it by louts, some as long ago as the 17th century. We have seen few monuments so wantonly disfigured. Hanging on the wall above is a Tudor funeral helmet, with the head of a bearded unicorn.

Among memorials to families worshipping here is one to Mark Mott, who founded a charity in the 18th century, and of much interest is the big tablet to the Clerkes, for it records the name of Captain Charles Clerke who must have seen as much of the globe as any man of his day. Three times he sailed round the world, meeting his end in attempting to go a fourth time with Captain Cook. He had the poignant experience of lying helpless on his ship, and seeing the natives kill the immortal captain. He saw the tragedy through his glasses and could do nothing. He was senior officer and took charge of the expedition in place of Cook, but his health grew worse and before he reached Kamchatka he was dead, only 38. They buried him under a tree, a man mourned by all his companions, for he was a frank and merry sailor, a line seaman, and an honest kind-hearted Englishman.

A window of Our Lord appearing to Mary Magdalene is in memory of Captain Gordon, who died in the Indian Mutiny, and of his wife, who lived on for half a century without him. A brass tells of General Gordon of the Black Watch, who fell in the Great War.

Three miles from Wethersheld stands one of the oldest houses in the county, Great Codham Hall. One of its wings is 16th century, the other is 17th, and both have 17th century chimneys; but the main part of the house is 600 years old and its original kingpost still supports the roof of its 14th century hall.