ST MARY. The nave is Norman, see N windows. The W tower was begun c. 1500: brick, with diagonal buttresses. But it was not completed and does not reach above the nave roof. It was conceived quite ambitiously. The W doorway has shields in the spandrels, a hood-mould resting on two lions couchant, fleurons in jambs and voussoirs, a frieze of small shields above, and then the three-light W window. However, the chancel of c. 1330 is what really matters at Little Oakley. It has a three-light window with reticulated tracery and inside two niches l. and r., with very steep canopies with crockets and finials. The Piscina is of the same character. Its steep gable is flanked by thin tall decorative buttresses. The N and S windows are of two lights of three different simple kinds of Dec tracery. The priest’s door on the S side is placed in the middle of a buttress which widens porch-wise to take it.
LITTLE OAKLEY. We come to its cluster of cottages on our way from Harwich; one of them takes us back to the 17th century, while White House Farm is a century older. A cart track over a field brings us to the church in the shelter of limes and elms, and we come into it hardly realising the wonder of the place, for it has three doors four centuries old, the one on the south still with its original strap-hinges. The old west door has moulded battens, and the old tower door has ridged panels. Very few churches are so rich in old doors as Little Oakley. The tiny priest’s doorway is cut through a wide buttress and has dripstones carved with Satanic faces. There is delicate stone carving of the 14th century over the piscina, and fragments of old glass 600 years old. The old folk here still speak of George Burmester, who baptised them and their fathers before them, for he came to the church in 1831 and served it till 1892, a span of 61 years.
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