Wix

St Mary the Virgin has only one feature of any interest and that is an old arcade in the north around which the present church was built. Sadly the churchyard is very neglected and seedlings have been allowed to grow untrammelled all over the place and the arcade is barely visible. Like nearby Great Oakley this felt very neglected and unloved and was locked with no keyholder listed but I can't believe the interior would be any better than the exterior.

ST MARY. Nave and lower chancel with polygonal apse. They now look mostly C18 and undistinguished. But in the nave wall, on the N side, is a blocked former N arcade of the C13, with octagonal piers.

WIX. It lines the road from Colchester to Harwich, and has a 17th century inn. Not far away stands an Elizabethan house with a three-storeyed porch under a crow-stepped gable; it is on the site of a priory founded in the reign of Henry the First and abolished by Cardinal Wolsey. The church is by the old house, ivy climbing its walls toward the little turret which holds a small bell. We found a much bigger bell, itself covered with ivy, hanging in a detached wooden turret in the middle of the great churchyard. The church has been made smaller, for we can see from the outside a bricked-up arcade with capitals moulded 700 years ago.

Flickr.