Basildon

I loved Holy Cross despite that there's not much to see and it's locked no keyholder listed, it's just lovely (even if it is totally out of keeping with the rest of the town).

HOLY CROSS. Small church with unbuttressed W tower, C14 nave and chancel rebuilt in brick in 1597. S Porch of timber, C15, plain. - Chancel roof with embattled purlins and wind-braces. - COMMUNION RAILS with twisted balusters still quite substantial in girth; c. 1700. - WEATHER VANE dated 1702. - PLATE. Cup of 1709.

BASILDON. It has a hill with fine views everywhere, and its church looks down from it, the tower capped by a little pyramid from which springs a vane with the initials of the man who made it, and the date: F. A. 1702. The doorway and the nave are 600 years old; the red brick chancel was made new in Queen Elizabeth’s day. There are quaint carvings on the spandrels of the beams, showing a bear holding a ragged staff, and a dragon with a barbed tongue.

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Laindon

A smallish church in a vast graveyard on top of a hill St Nicholas, locked no keyholder, is lovely with an extraordinary wooden 'priest house' tacked on to the west end, a really good broach spire and all round attractiveness; the only downside is its locked status. I think this would reward a return visit if it is open for Ride & Stride.

ST NICHOLAS. On a steep eminence above a sea of bungalows. A small church with a timber belfry, dark weather-boarded and crowned by a broach-spire. W of it an annexe, called the Priest’s House, C17, much restored, two-storeyed. Inside the belfry one of the splendid sturdy Essex timber constructions. In this case (cf. Horndon-on-the-Hill, Leaden Roding etc.) it is independently built inside the walls of the church. Nave and two-bay C14 S chapel with octagonal pier and double-chamfered arches. Chancel also C14. S Porch timber, C15, mostly rebuilt. However, the oddly primitive carvings in the spandrels of the archway against the nave doorway are original, a beast pierced by a cross-shaft, a dragon etc. C15 nave and chancel roofs. - FONT. Of the Purbeck type, with shallow blank pointed arcades on each side; C13. - PLATE. Cup on baluster stem of 1656; flower-decorated Paten (secular?) of 1672. - BRASSES. Two brasses of Priests, one 3 ft 3 in. long of c. 1480, the other a little over 1 ft, c. 1510.

LAINDON. The village nestles below the round knob of a hill which Nature seems to have left for the little church that has crowned it for 800 years. The tall shingled spire on a wooden tower is a landmark for all who travel on the main road to Southend.. Climbing the steep lane, we find that a quaint timbered house of two storeys was added 300 years ago to the west end of the church, serving then as the village school and now as the rector’s room. The wooden porch of the church has been rebuilt, but has still the two original archways, one having a dragon and a scallop shell carved in one spandrel, and a beast pierced by a cross in the other. The woodwork within is remarkable. Massive posts support the tower, the roofs of the nave and chancel are splendid 15th century work, and there is carving on the wall-plates. The nail-studded door has been hanging about 500 years. The font is two centuries older. There are portraits in brass of two of the priests who ministered here in the 15th century, John Kekilpenny and Richard Bladwell. Among fragments of old glass in the windows we noticed a fleur-de-lys growing out of the head of a leopard; it is 400 years old.

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Dunton

Built in 1873 St Mary the Virgin is very pedestrian, redundant and now a residential property - no great loss.

ST MARY. 1873 by Bartlett. - PLATE. Cup of 1563 with bands of ornament; Paten of 1567.

Mee seems to disagree about its age:

DUNTON. It is scattered on the lower slopes of the Langdon Hills. The arterial road to Southend runs between two of its oldest houses, Wayletts and Southfields. Wayletts is 500 and Southfields 200 years old. By an old farm is the red brick church in a great churchyard reaching out to a pond; in the churchyard is a 700-year-old coffin. At the west end of the church are the great beams the 15th century  builders inserted to support the bell-turret.

Langdon Hills

Langdon Hills luxuriates in having two churches -  St Mary and All Saints. The first is the older being predominantly C16th but declared redundant in the 1970s and converted into a private residence (the graveyard is still accessible). The second was built in 1877 to replace the first and is a good example of its kind though locked with no keyholder.

I liked both of these churches even though they're not my usual type.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN AND ALL SAINTS. Small church, prettily placed - a surprise in these bungalow surroundings. Nave and chancel early C16, of brick with brick windows, the E window of three lights with Perp panel tracery, very similar to Horndon-on-the-Hill. A N chancel chapel was added in 1621. It has a two-bay arcade with a thick short octagonal pier and round arches. The chapel itself was rebuilt in 1834. The timber belfry was rebuilt in 1842. - TYMPANUM, i.e. plastered wall between upper parts of nave and chancel, resting on a tie-beam. Painted on it the ROYAL ARMS, with the date 1660. - Painted Inscription of 1666 on the N wall. - COMMUNION RAIL, dated 1686, conservative for its date - not yet of the Wren style.

ST MARY. 1876 by William White, tall and very narrow, with W tower, standing immediately along the road, with the wood behind - a romantic setting.

LANGDON HILLS. It is named from the heights on which it stands; there is nothing higher than its 386 feet in a line due north between here and the North Pole. The views all round are wonderful, pleasant woods, sloping meadows, and waving cornfields lying immediately below, with the Thames marshes in the distance and the blue downs of Kent on the horizon. It was one of the sights that thrilled Arthur Young, who wrote of it. Almost at the top is the lofty tower of the new church, from which peals some of the finest music of bells in Essex. A tree-shaded lane winds down to the charming place in which the villagers worshipped in olden days. Deserted and forlorn for years, it is a fine example of the work of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which has restored this rare church rebuilt in the brief revival of Gothic in the days of Charles Stuart. Delightful is the moulding of the red bricks framing the east window, flanked by moulded niches. The altar rails have turned balusters and are Jacobean and the three-decker pulpit is in the same style.

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Bulphan

Externally dull the interest at St Mary the Virgin is all internal but it's locked with no keyholder listed and so its attractions remain a mystery.

ST MARY. The interest of the church is entirely its timberwork, the tower, the porch, the screen. The tower externally tile-hung with ornamental tiles, no doubt in Late Victorian days. It stands internally on six posts forming a nave and aisles. The aisles are divided horizontally by cross-beams with diagonal braces. Braces for the cross beams of the centre spring from the aisles too. The centre has beams on big braces springing from the arcade posts. Also of good timber construction is the S porch of c. 1500. It has ornate bargeboarding with tracery decoration. - SCREEN, C15, uncommonly rich. Two side openings and doorway. Each side opening is of two lights under one arch with the mullion rising up into the apex of the arch and cusped tracery. All spandrels have blank tracery panelling. - PLATE. Cup of 1650.

BULPHAN. In the flat country round the Langdon Hills, it has a few old houses and Appleton’s Farm, very attractive with its upper storey overhanging both wings of a 15th century hall. Ivy-clad elms face the green where three roads meet, an old barn on one side and a lychgate on the other. The church has a handsome timber porch of about 1500, the bargeboards elaborately carved. The building has been made new, the medieval windows and the old doorway having been reset in the wall. The walls at the west end are plastered and timbered on a brick plinth forming a square of 24 feet, and within this area stand eight oak posts placed here 500 years ago to support the bell-turret. They are joined together by cross-beams with diagonal framing above, while cross-braces add to their impressiveness. In the turret is one surviving old bell which rings out the old year and a group of five tubular bells which ring in the new.

At the other end of the nave is a 15th century screen with two bays on each side of the entrance, their heads containing bold tracery. It is a triumph of craftsmanship, and is said to have come from Barking Abbey, of which hardly a trace remains.

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Horndon on the Hill

Approached from the north SS Peter & Paul, locked no keyholder, presents a rather battered and bruised aspect, by far its best vista, the south having been rather blandly spruced up. I liked the broach spire, a feature I'm not normally attracted to but this sits well with its building.

ST PETER AND ST PAUL. Primarily an E.E. church, as is evidenced by both nave arcades and the remains of a clerestory above and the N chancel chapel arcade. The N nave arcade seems to have come first: four bays, alternatingly circular and octagonal piers and capitals with crockets and flat stiffleaf. The voussoirs of one of the arches are decorated by rosettes, a most uncommon motif. The S arcade is nearly identical, except that the capitals are undecorated. The E responds however have upright leaves which look as if they might have been re-tooled in the C15. The arcade to the chancel chapel has an octagonal pier with moulded capitals. The arches are double-chamfered, whereas most of the arches of the nave arcade are of one step with one chamfer. The C13 clerestory windows were quatrefoil. C13 also the S doorway with two orders of colonnettes, of which one is keeled, and many-moulded voussoirs. At the W end in the C15 a timber bell-turret was erected inside the first nave bay from the W, an independent construction on four sturdy posts with crossbeams and carved braces. An interesting feature is that the N and S beams cantilever out to the E and support struts for the superstructure. Trellis-strutting above the crossbeams. Broach-spire. The roofs of chancel and nave are partly original. One alteration is that dormer-windows have been set into the nave roof on both sides. The timber S porch does not contain much of the C15. Not much of interest in the windows. The E window of four lights is Perp ; in the S aisle two C14 windows. - FONT. C14, square bowl with some panelling; on square stem. - LECTERN. 1898. Good Arts-and-Crafts job, straight in all its timber-work but with some turquoise enamel inlay and some copper. Whom by? - PLATE. Cup of 1567; Flagon of 1700. - MONUMENT. Daniel Caldwell d. 1634 and wife. With inscription and two black columns; figures of prophets with scrolls stand outside these.

HORNDON-ON-THE-HILL. Its delightful houses take us into another age, jostling each other with their thatched roofs. A timbered inn has overhung the road for 500 years, the 400-year-old market hall is a club for the village folk, and Arden Hall has a square brick dovecot of the 17th century. But an avenue of lime trees brings us to the quaint porch of a church older than all the houses, for we come into it through a Norman doorway to find the light falling through two Norman clerestory windows. The nave arcades are 13th century, with fine piers carved with leaves and flowers. The splendid chancel roof is 15th century, probably the work of the carpenters who set up the huge beams crowning one of the four bays to support the timbered belfry. The font, of unusual design and simple beauty, is 600 years old.

A great hero of this village was Thomas Highbed, who walked into the fire for his faith in 1555. He was apparently a man of some note, for the Record Office in London has a complete inventory of all his goods, chattels, and farming implements.

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Orsett

St Giles & All Saints, locked no keyholder, has a rather good Norman south door and was the first church of the day where I really felt resentment at not being able to gain access (and, having read Pevsner, rightly so). I really liked both the location, in the old heart of the village, surrounded by timbered and overhanging houses, and the building and churchyard but why it's locked is mystifying - or at least a keyholder would be helpful.

ST GILES AND ALL SAINTS. Norman nave - see the S doorway with primitive volute capitals, arch with zigzag, hoodmould with billet, a curved lintel and a tympanum with diapers divided into triangles. Evidence of a C13 N aisle the first two bays from the W - the first now blocked by the W tower. They have circular piers and one-stepped, single-chamfered arches. In the C14 the chancel was built and the N aisle widened. The chancel E window is of four lights with cusping and a quatrefoil in a circle on top. The S window and those of the C19 S  organ chamber are of two lights in the same style. The chancel Sedilia have detached shafts and moulded capitals. Of the C14 also the E part of the N arcade with piers with four demi-shafts and four hollows in the diagonals and moulded arches. Next in time comes the tower, placed at the W end of the aisle and occupying its first C13 bay. It is partly of stone and partly of C17 brick and has big diagonal buttresses, a thick NW stair-turret, brick battlements and a spire. - FONT. Perp, octagonal, with buttressed stem and panels with rosettes and shields. - SCREEN. 1911 by Comper. - STAINED GLASS. S chapel W and organ chamber E by Wailes c. 1845, with glaringly coloured roundels. - SCULPTURE. Five Italian C18 panels: Annunciation, Holy Family, Mourning of the Dead Christ, Ascension, Pentecost. - PLATE. Cup and Cover of 1575; Flagon of 1677; Salver of 1688. - MONUMENTS. Brasses to Thomas Latham d. 1485 and wife and children, minute figures. - Sir John Hart d. 1658. Broad standing wall monument with black columns, entablature with narrower segmental pediment and semi-reclining figure with cheek propped up on elbow. - Elizabeth Baker d. 1796, monument with small female with urn, above inscription plate; by Regnart. - Charlotte Baker d. 1808, figure of faith standing; by Westmacott. - Dame Jane Trafford Southwell d. 1809. mourning female, urn, and standing angel, also by Westmacott. - Again by Westmacott Richard Baker d. 1827, standing wall monument with two angels, one on the floor, the other just taking off. - In the churchyard Captain Samuel Bonham d. 1745, pyramid on bulgy sarcophagus.

ORSETT. Approach it by any way we will, some attraction greets us: an old windmill by a 16th century house at a crossroads London-way, a row of timbered houses on the other side, the Cock Inn towards the Thames, a medieval house with an overhanging storey to the north. A path by the church leads across a field to the earthworks on which stood a palace of Bishop Bonner, the torturer of so many Protestants and chief agent of Mary Tudor’s reign of terror.

Close by is another rich heritage from the 16th century, Hall Farm, with an overhanging storey and ancient windows. By this lovely piece of Tudor England stands the village lock-up with a tiny barred window; on a small green under the trees is the village pound; and on another open space is the memorial to the men who did not come back, “in token of pride and affection and respect.”

We pass the old Church House, which is now a post ofiice, and a 17th century cottage now a shop, to come to the wooden porch which has sheltered for 500 years the magnificent doorway (with two ancient sundials) set up by the Normans in 1160. The present nave was their whole church. The great tower 16 feet square has on its wall the name of its 15th century donor; its spire is 17th century. The chapel has long been linked with Orsett Hall, a house in a lovely park beyond the village. Its owners have filled it with treasures old and new. A traceried screen of the 15th century divides it from the aisle. An imposing monument covers the grave of Sir John Hart, who died in Cromwell’s day and lies between black columns. An angel with a sickle and an angel of the resurrection are on the 19th century tomb of Richard Baker. There are brass portraits in the chancel of Thomas Latham with his wife and their three children in 15th century costume, and a brass of Robert Kinge, a 16th century priest. There is a fine font from medieval days, a Jacobean pulpit, a 16th century chest with linenfold, and another of the 17th century with a lid 700 years old.

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Stanford le Hope

I took St Margaret of Antioch, locked no keyholder, to be entirely Victorian built but apparently the main body of the church is old. Unusually the tower, which was built in 1883, is situated at the east end of the north aisle and that's pretty much all the interest I found here.

ST MARGARET OF ANTIOCH. The village has recently grown into a little town, and the church bears out that development. It is dominated by its big tower at the E end of the N aisle which dates from 1883 and is designed on the pattern of that of Prittlewell church, Southend-on-Sea. The W front also is C19. These two hide a building which at least rudimentarily can be traced back to the C12 - see the two windows visible inside in the N and S walls of the nave close to the chancel. The N arcade is clearly E.E. with alternating octagonal and circular supports and one-stepped arches with two slight hollow chamfers. The S arcade - a usual change - has octagonal piers only and double-chamfered arches, i.e. belongs to the C14. C14 also is the chancel, see the Sedilia and the low ogee-headed recess in the N wall. In it stands a tomb-chest of c. 1500. - FONT. Octofoil plan, C13, on nine supports. - SCREEN at W end of S chancel chapel, of one-light divisions, simple and graceful, c. 1400. - PLATE. Cup on baluster stem, and Paten of 1709. - MONUMENTS. Sir Heneage Fetherstone d. 1711 with two weeping cherubs and between them a relief of ill-assorted bones. - In the churchyard a more gruesome display of bones: monument to James Adams d. 1765. Big tomb-chest with rounded lid and on this crudely carved cherubs, bible, and masses of bones. At the back against the churchyard wall baldacchino with curtains raised, which, in less rustic monuments, is a C17 not an C18 motif.

STANFORD-LE-HOPE. It looks over a creek from which the road winds up to a churchyard beautiful with yew and cypress avenues, shading beds of flowers. From here the radiating roads lead past the Jacobean Hassenbrook Hall with its old garden wall, or the 15th century manor farm with four gables looking out over a pond. Alone in the flat meadows of the Thames, this farm is full of old timber and quaint nooks.

But the church, with a noble tower of modern times, has older work than any house, for there are relics of two windows of the Norman church in its walls. There are 13th century piers and a font of the same time, the font having a cover of Stuart days. In the chancel rebuilt in the 14th century are the heads of two surly monks on the sedilia, and facing them is a charming recess with rich decoration. Beautiful carving enriches the medieval screen round the chapel where the Featherstone family sat apart at worship and were laid to rest. The roofs are massive and the nail-studded door is 400 years old and as strong as ever. Behind the new vestries is one of the extravagant tombs of the 18th century, carved all over with flowers and cherubs in memory of James Adams.

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Mucking

Ruinous in 1852 an extensive restoration was undertaken, which was completed in 1872, rendering St John the Baptist virtually Victorian built. Made redundant and de-consecrated in 1982 it has been converted for domestic use.

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST. 1849-52 except for chancel (Perp three-light E window) with a blocked C13 arcade to a former N chapel, whose lancet windows, when it was pulled down, were re-used. The S chapel is C19, but its arch is C15. The S aisle has a C13 arcade of two bays with treble-chamfered arches. The pier is circular and has a big stiff-leaf capital, with two faces between the leaves. One is a so-called Green Man, that is a face with leaves sprouting out of his mouth. The W tower is mostly C19, but the S doorway which serves as a porch has recognizable C15 pans. Plain Sedilia in the chancel. - PLATE. C17 Cup. - MONUMENT. Graceful little alabaster monument of Elizabeth Downes d. 1607, with kneeling figure between ornamented pilasters.

MUCKING. It deserves a prettier name, this Anglo-Saxon meadow in the marshes by the Thames, as its name implied in olden days. It has quaint old farms and cottages round about, and a wall of grey stones surrounds the churchyard, probably quarried from a vanished nunnery which stood on the site of the hall. Passing under an avenue of chestnuts we enter the church through a door in a fine new tower. Much of the building is of our own time, but the restorers have left some lovely features of the old one, especially the great round pier supporting the arch between the nave and aisle. The foliage round its capital, from which peep out two wise-looking heads, was carved about the time of Magna Carta. A charming little lady kneels in alabaster on the wall of the chapel; she was Elizabeth Downes, who lived in “matrimonye with four several husbands”; their four coats-of-arms are on her monument.

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Linford

St Francis, which I assume is normally locked, was open for a coffee morning and I had a long chat with the lady in charge about why I was taking photos - having, rather unsurprisingly, raised suspicions amongst the coffee goers. Usually a church like this wouldn't gain an entry but it reminded me of various RC churches I've attended over the years so I've included it as a quirk.

Unsurprisingly neither Pevsner nor Mee mention it.

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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.

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West Tilbury

On my way to East Tilbury from the fort TomTom took me past St James which sits on a lump - normally I'd describe it as a hill but in this alluvial plain that seems laughable, and even more so here in my native Essex - and I have to say it's rather striking from a distance.

Made redundant in 1979 St James is now a residential property - personally I don't like the re-distribution of the headstones but that's a matter for the Church Commissioners conscience, and may have happened long before the sale.

Basically a Victorian rebuild so not much of a loss but I imagine that as a house it's fantastic - I'd have a study at the top of the tower and do nothing all day but dream.

 

ST JAMES. Well placed on the edge of the escarpment looking to the S towards the river. The Royal Commission mentions an Early Norman window partly preserved in the N wall. This cannot now be seen. On the S side near the W end one deeply splayed lancet. Otherwise C1 windows. W tower of 1883. - PLATE. Chalices given in 1772 and 1797.

The church (at West Tilbury) stands among elms and chestnuts on the edge of the bold escarpment overlooking the meadows stretching to the Thames, and beyond to the hills of Kent. The rampart and the ditch of an ancient camp are close by, and it is believed to have been here that Queen Elizabeth reviewed her hosts. By the river is Tilbury Fort, with a gatehouse of 1682. There are traces of Norman windows in the nave and chancel of the church, and the walls are among the earliest Norman work in England, being 11th century; but the tower is modern with five 17th century bells hanging in it. On the floor of the nave is a coffin lid 700 years old with a moulded edge and a cross, and  here is an ancient piscina and one or two medieval windows.

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East Tilbury

Weather permitting I'm aiming for a double visit this week; on Wednesday I finished off Basildon and dipped into Brentwood and Thurrock, both of which I hope to finish tomorrow - the forecast is not good but due to overhead works I'll have no electricity at home so I might as well have a punt.

As expected all 14 churches were locked with no keyholders listed and I expect this trend to continue as I move closer to London (I have very low expectations for the London churches).

I'm rather ashamed to say that I came to Thurrock with disparaging pre-conceptions but was won over by its alluring diversity. To an Uttlesford dweller it's a very strange blend of industrial brutality (which is rather beautiful in its own right), utterly flat flood plain farmland - until you get to Langdon Hills - interspersed with fields of horses and ponies transposed from the horse fairs of southern Ireland, and here and there seemingly free range cattle, the Thames estuary and quite staggeringly ugly new (the term is used loosely) towns and ribbon developments. I love it - this is the beginning of TOWIE land and a class apart from Southend.

To get to the point: Having started the day at Tilbury Fort, which will no doubt be covered by the boys, I arrived at St Catherine as Mass was about to be celebrated. Judging from the padlock on the porch gate it's normally locked but due to the Mass I had a short look inside and concluded that I would have liked some time to record the interior, inside looked more interesting than outside - perhaps a Ride and Stride revisit next year. To the east is Coalhouse Fort which I found closed for the day - it is end of season after all - and more interesting than Tilbury (although to be fair Tilbury is fascinating).

ST CATHERINE. On the N escarpment of the Thames, close to the river, with the grey walls of the Coal. House Fort (1866-7I) below. The most interesting feature of the church is the N arcade of four bays with alternating circular and octagonal piers, square capitals of scallops with angle volutes, and unmoulded pointed arches. The E respond shows waterleaf, the aisle outer walls two lancets. All this must belong to the later decades of the C12. Evidence of the Norman church which was enlarged by this aisle is one blocked window above the fourth arcade arch. The chancel is a good piece of E.E. building; three stepped E lancets, and also N and S lancets. On the N side one two-light window of c. 1300. The nave S side shows evidence inside and out of a former arcade. It is said that this fell victim to the Dutch raid of 1667. The present wall is C19, but the windows are good original C14 pieces. A C13 W tower must also have existed - see the tower arch. A new tower was begun S of the W end of the church in 1917, but has not yet been completed. - PULPIT. Usual Elizabethan type.

The DOCKS were built in the 1880s and opened in1886. The plans are by A. Manning. - New Landing Stage, Baggage Halls and Offices 1925-30 by Sir Edwin Cooper, brick and stone, in that architect’s formal Neo-Georgian, with symmetrically placed cupolas, big stone surrounds of arches a la Somerset House, etc.

It is rewarding to compare these large commercial installations of the C19 and C20 with TILBURY FORT a little lower down the river, built in 1682 against the Dutch and French, a much more modest job, also primarily utilitarian, but also consciously for display. The GATEWAY, similar to that of the Plymouth Citadel, has a ground floor of the triumphal arch type, with four Ionic demi-columns, an archway with depressed head and trophies in the spandrels, and an upper storey only as wide as the centre part below. Two Corinthian columns carry a segmental pediment. To the l. and r. above the side parts below thickly carved trophies. The type of gateway derives from C17 France, the style is more robust and a little fussier than that of Sir Christopher Wren. The view from the Fort across the wide river towards  Gravesend is impressive.

EAST TILBURY. A tiny place, it was the ferrying centre to which the potters of Roman Britain brought their wares. Broken fragments of Samian ware may still be found in the mud of the shore, and covered up here are the foundations of the ferrymen’s huts, all carefully explored and recorded years ago.

In the nave of the church is a blocked-up Norman arch, the earliest witness of Christianity here. It is possible that a Saxon church stood on this site, for Bede tells us how St Cedd, the Northumbrian missionary to the East Saxons, founded a monastery at Tilbury 1300 years ago. Three bold piers with carved capitals were set up in the time of Thomas Becket, when an aisle was added. The wide chancel arch is a delightful frame for the three lancets in the 13th century chancel, each one with a fine figure. The font is 400 years old and the handsome pulpit 300.

The patchwork walls of the nave tell a tale of the shame of Charles the Second, the starver of our navy. So mean was he that the Fleet was unable to ward off the Dutch warships which came up the Thames and battered down with shot and shell the aisle and the ancient tower of this church. The base of a new tower has been set up as a memorial to the men who with more patriotism defended London’s river during the Great War. They lived across a field in a fort built by General Gordon in the days when he commanded the Royal Engineers and was  responsible for the defences of the Thames. His memory lingers here, and his name has been inscribed on the stones of the new tower. On the inside wall has been set the coffin lid of an ancient inhabitant; it has a cross moulded on it 700 years ago.

Here are memories of two famous authors, one remembered by every English-speaking boy and one known to the few elect. The little known scholar was Gervase of Tilbury, who was sent to Rome and grew up to teach law at Bologna. He was present at the famous meeting between Frederick Barbarossa and the Pope in 1177, and he was made Marshal of Arles, the town of splendour and ease in the days of Imperial Rome. The author known to every boy was Daniel Defoe, who worked at Tilbury (it is said in a tile factory).

TILBURY. It is the first of the Port of London Docks on coming from the sea, and is 24 miles from the mouth of the Thames. It has passenger traific facilities equal to any in the world, a floating landing stage 1142 feet long. The biggest liners afloat can come in to it any hour of day or night whatever the tide may be. It has four miles of quays and 45 miles of railways, and daily cargoes arriving from the ends of the earth.

And it has a famous memory, for here, in the stirring times of danger when the battle with the Armada was raging, came Queen Elizabeth to address and hearten her troops. Mounted on a splendid charger, she rode bareheaded, a page bearing her white-plumed helmet. Only two nobles attended her, and one carried the Sword of State ahead of her. Over her bodice she wore a corselet of polished steel, and her words were the words of a veritable Tudor Boadicea.

It was the time of the greatest peril the nation had known since the Norman Conquest, but it was the proudest day of the Queen’s life. It was then that she made a marvellous speech which history has preserved. She told her volunteer soldiers (we had no regular army) how others had feared for her to risk coming among them, but she did not desire to live if she could not trust her people:

Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come among you at this time resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom and for my people my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

Then followed the famous declaration that history does not forget:

I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

The old forge facing the green recalls the busy scene in 1648 when the cavalry for Fairfax halted here on the way to Colchester and the horses were stabled in the nave of the church. There is an old farmhouse which was here then, for it was Tilbury Hall 400 years ago; it has a great thatched barn.

The church (at West Tilbury) stands among elms and chestnuts on the edge of the bold escarpment overlooking the meadows stretching to the Thames, and beyond to the hills of Kent. The rampart and the ditch of an ancient camp are close by, and it is believed to have been here that Queen Elizabeth reviewed her hosts. By the river is Tilbury Fort, with a gatehouse of 1682. There are traces of Norman windows in the nave and chancel of the church, and the walls are among the earliest Norman work in England, being 11th century; but the tower is modern with five 17th century bells hanging in it. On the floor of the nave is a coffin lid 700 years old with a moulded edge and a cross, and  here is an ancient piscina and one or two medieval windows.

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Hadleigh

I'm sorry to say that, in some part due to the rain which had started to fall in earnest, I wrote off St James the Less (locked no keyholder) as a Victorian build when in fact it transpires to be a Norman original. Having been beguiled by the ruins of Hadleigh Castle I undoubtedly missed a more rewarding experience here, although access would probably have made a difference.

ST JAMES THE LESS. A complete little Norman church, essentially unaltered, but unfortunately placed immediately S of an A-road with unsightly shops and shacks near its E end. This E end is apsed. A chancel precedes the apse, a nave the chancel. At the W end a boarded belfry resting inside on a free-standing four-post structure, the only later (C15) addition. Otherwise only a few windows are not original: nave N one C13 lancet,  chancel S one two-light Dec window, nave S one two-light Perp window. - FONT. Made up of various parts. The best is the lower part of the bowl with stiff-leaf growing diagonally. - PAINTINGS . Very remarkable fragments. In the nave NE lancet demi-figure of St Thomas of Canterbury of c. 1275, in the window W of this Angel with spread-out wings (?), C13 ; on the wall further W trefoiled canopy said to be C14. - PLATE. Cup and Paten of 1568; both with bands of ornament.

HADLEIGH CASTLE is by far the most important later medieval castle in the county. It was built originally for Hubert de Burgh, Chief Justiciar, c. 1232, but then rebuilt by Edward III. It was in course of erection in 1365. The chief residential parts were to the S and have been entirely obliterated by a landslide. What survives is the W, N, and E curtain-wall, but not to any impressive height, the wall and one outer turret of the barbican on the N side, and four circular towers, all open towards the bailey. The highest, famous from Constable’s painting, is the SE tower. Here three storeys can still be recognized with windows and chimney flues. The tower to the N of this has two storeys remaining. The broadest tower is the one next to the barbican. The whole castle is of irregular oblong shape, and visually a little disappointing after the high hopes raised by Constable’s interpretation.

HADLEIGH. Its fame is in its Norman church and in the ruins of the home of two queens. Save for a few windows and doorways, the walls of the apse, chancel, and nave of the church are almost as the Norman builders left them. It is a joy to pass from the busy highway into this lovely old place. The chancel arch is only 18 feet high and not 11 feet wide. The font has foliage carved in the 13th century, and there is other carved stonework in niches. But the pride of the church is a painting of Thomas Becket on the splay of a window, made by an artist who may have seen him. It is from the years between 1170, when he was murdered, and 1173, when he was canonised. In the windows are modern portraits of Ethelburga, first Abbess of England’s first nunnery (at Barking) and the Evangelist of Essex, St Cedd.

Here in a field on the brow of a steep hill stand the ruins of Hadleigh Castle, with glorious views over the estuary of the Thames and of the coast of Kent merging into the horizon. The massive towers are magnificent, their walls being nine feet wide at the base, and the whole ruin covers about an acre. It was Hubert de Burgh who first built a castle here and Edward the First gave it to his queen. Rebuilt in 1365, it was made into one of the most remarkable Essex strongholds, and Henry the Eighth chose it as a home for his unwanted queen, Anne of Cleves. The ruins of this home of queens have been assured of lasting fame whatever may happen to them, for John Constable, who immortalised the northern boundary of Essex, came to admire and paint this lovely scene on its southern shore.

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Canvey Island

St Katherine, redundant, is, at least, the third church on the site and was made redundant in the late 1970's. Now re-designated as the Canvey Island Heritage Centre & Museum - I know I thought that as well - the chief interest here is the graveyard although the church is quite sweet in a New England sort of way.

Canvey Island was reclaimed by the great Cornelius Vermuyden. When the sea wall had been built and the land was secured, Dutch labourers were settled, and two cottages, both called DUTCH COTTAGE, are the earliest surviving buildings on the island. One is at the corner of the lane leading to Hole Haven, the other by the main road a little further NW. They are dated 1621 and 1618, octagonal in plan and thatched. The character of the island has completely changed during the C20. Its whole E half is now one bungalow and seaside development.

CANVEY ISLAND. A low-lying island of the Thames, six miles long and three broad, it has about 4500 acres of land, which some believe to be the Connos of the ancient geographer Ptolemy. The fields are a rich grazing ground, and were won from the river by a Dutchman who came here in 1621 and built a sea wall round it, receiving a third of the island in payment. There is still a pretty thatched cottage of that year in the older part of the village, and on the tombstones we read Dutch names; but nothing of the church of the Dutchmen remains, for the Dutch fleet raiding up the Thames in 1667 burnt it to the ground. The people replaced their lost shrine and the porch and some of the windows of the 18th century church are in the new one, a building all of wood, with a small belfry and spire. It has a window of St Katherine.

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South Benfleet

I rather liked St Mary (locked no keyholder) despite the dead rat in the graveyard - to me it's a stolid, workaday building but there's something about the squat truncated tower, tall and short nave and decidedly average chancel that, taken as a whole, renders a really pleasing building. The location, it has to be said, helps enormously and whilst probably not a top ten church it's certainly in the not to be missed category - just a shame it's inaccessible.


ST MARY. A biggish church, as churches in this part of the county go. Big W tower with angle buttresses at the foot, and a recessed spire. The original windows indicate an early C14 date. Nave with Perp clerestory, S and N aisles, both Perp, but the (embattled) S aisle  probably a little earlier. The chancel also is Perp. The most rewarding part of the church is the timber S porch, C15, unusually ornate, with panel tracery in the spandrels of the doorway, an embattled beam, tracery panels in the gable, cusped bargeboarding and a fine two-bay hammer-beam roof inside. On entering the church one becomes aware of the much earlier origin of the nave. The W wall has a plain Norman doorway (into the later tower) and high above two unusually large blocked Norman windows. Was a higher middle window or a circular window between them? The nave is impressive by its height. Its roof was raised in 1902. The carved stone corbels lower down tell of the earlier roof. The height of the present roof allows for two small windows above the chancel arch. As for the arcades between nave and aisles, the S arcade has octagonal piers, the later N arcade piers with four attached shafts and four hollows in the diagonals. The arches on both sides are double-chamfered. The chancel roof has tiebeams with king-posts and four-way struts. - SCREEN (1931) and WEST GALLERY by Sir Charles Nicholson - the Nicholsons were a Benfleet family. - PLATE. Cup with band of ornament and Paten, both of 1576.

SOUTH BENFLEET. There was a Roman emperor who set himself to stamp out Christianity. Here is the consecration cross of an English church made from Roman tiles. The cross is in the 14th century tower, capped by a shingle spire in which still rings a 15th century bell. By the chancel doorway is a medieval sundial.

It is the church porch that speaks first of beauty here; artists come from far and near to paint it, and architects to study its perfect symmetry. It was built about 500 years ago with its moulded and embattled timbers and its hammerbeams, an amazing mass of carved wood crowded into a tiny space with no suggestion of confusion. The porch has been described as a little miracle of perfection without and within. Indoors the church is handsome with a lofty nave, a modern screen painted with saints, and an organ loft adorned with prints of Fra Angelico’s angel choir.

Its oldest part is in the inner wall of the tower, which is pierced by a Norman doorway between two stopped-up Norman windows. The lofty nave has clerestory windows below which are corbels carved 500 years ago, a cat and a pig among them. There is a window and a brass in memory of the village’s great hero, vicar during an epidemic of cholera in the middle of last century. He was John Aubone Cook. Dauntless and unflinching in his devotion to his flock, in the end he sacrificed his life to them. The face of the Good Samaritan in his memorial window is thought to be a portrait.

The village lies by a creek of Hadleigh Ray separating it from Canvey Island. Here came the Danes in 893 and set up a fortified camp from which to harry the land. Alfred’s men, too much for them, seized their camp and took off to London all the ships they did not burn, and the story of this, told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, has been borne out by the finding of skeletons and charred timbers when the railway was being made. There are old inns of much charm and a few old cottages, and it is a pleasant path in the shade of sycamores that brings us to the ancient tower.

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Thundersley

St Peter, locked no keyholder; the tower and nave are typically southern Essex and spoilt by a barn like 1966 eastern extension. The extension is, apparently, award winning but for what and why I couldn't say. Pre-extension it was, though not particularly to my taste, a good example of its genre, post extension it's not, both the tower and nave are diminished by the oversized modernist style.

The graveyard - falling down the hill - is excellent.

ST PETER. On a hill with wide views around. Small. Nave and aisles under one big steep roof. The eaves no more than nine feet from the ground. Chancel of 1885. Belfry, shingled, with broach spire. Immediately behind the large three-light Perp W window with panel tracery the timber sub-structure of the bell-turret, not one of the more impressive ones. The arcades of N and S aisles are of the first half of the C13. Circular piers with stiff-leaf capitals of upright leaves and slightly double-hollow-chamfered arches. - FONT. Small, octagonal, Perp with quatrefoil panels. - HELM and SWORD, probably funerary. - PLATE. Cup with band of ornament and Paten, both of 1569.

THUNDERSLEY. Swinging in the wind as a weathervane on the spire of its church are gleaming figures of St Peter and the Archangel Michael. They preside over a church with a 15th century roof and a nave and narrow aisles 700 years old. Four great upright beams fill the end of the nave, set here in medieval days to support the bell-turret. On a wall hangs the helmet of some unknown squire buried here about the time the Stuarts came down from Scotland, and by the helmet hangs a sword; but much more beautiful is the Elizabethan chalice with its band of engraved ornament.

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Benfleet or New Thundersley

I can't begin to imagine why St George is included on the list; perhaps I was drunk when I added it.

Bowers Gifford

Locked no keyholder but understandably so as St Margaret of Antioch is very isolated - also hard to find - and given the location I was surprised to find it intact. Having said that, the exterior is dull (and made worse by the steady drizzle that had been threatening all morning) and the real reason to visit her is the six foot brass locked up inside so this was a disappointment.

ST MARGARET. Small church, quite on its own. The charm of the church is the huge diagonal buttress propping the small W tower at the SW corner only, and the asymmetrically placed W windows of the tower. The tower top and broach spire weather-boarded. Inside, this wooden upper part rests on unbraced posts with trellis strutting. - CHANCEL SCREEN. 1926 by Sir Charles Nicholson. - FONT COVER. Polygonal pyramid, C17. - BRASS. 6 feet tall figure of c. 1350, said to represent Sir John Gifford. d. 1348. The head not preserved. Shield with lovely fleur-de-lis and trail pattern. Legs not crossed.

BOWERS GIFFORD. It is still growing about the road to Southend. From this road a long and shady lane runs down the hill to the marshy levels recovered from the Thames, bringing us to a Tudor church with a quaint stone tower, a wooden belfry, and a six-sided spire.

A few things remain from an earlier church: two bells of the 14th century, a piscina of the 15th, a font with a coloured cover of the 16th, and a magnificent lifesize brass said to represent Sir John Gifford, who died about 1340. Though the head and a leg are missing, the costume and the armour are preserved and are unique, showing us what a knight wore when the first ball was fired from a cannon. It is the third oldest military brass in Essex, and valuable to artists as an important link in our knowledge of dress.

Behind the choir-stalls is a memorial to a lady buried in the shade of the elms. She was Flora Mary Campbell, who died in 19l5, and this is how her friends described her:

Ever the seeker after truth, a lover of science and nature, wild beasts and trees of the forests, the sovereign birds of the air, the flowers of the field, the fishes of the sea, the constellations of the heavens, she has at last attained unto the open vision.

Twenty years ago the church was restored and beautified by Sir Duncan Campbell, who owned Earls Fee, the old manor of the De Veres. On a wall of the nave is a tablet placed by him to Sir John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, who bore the crown at the coronation  of Anne Boleyn and now lies at Castle Hedingham. Another tablet recalls Aubrey, the last of the famous De Vere family which came over with the Conqueror. He is described as the noblest subject in England, and indeed, as Englishmen loved to say, the noblest subject in Europe. He died in 1703 and the title was not revived until Mr Asquith chose it.

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Pitsea

Like the church at Borley and the ruins at Alresford, St Michael comes with a reputation for being haunted and the nonsensical story that Ann Freeman, who died in 1879, was a witch which is based on her epitaph on her family grave:

Here lies a weak and sinful worm 

The vilest of her race 

Saved through God’s electing love 

His free and sovereign grace.

A quick search of census returns shows that she was born to a non conformist family on 30th Mar 1837 and in 1851 was a nursemaid in Paddington, in 1861 a general servant in Salford (which is rather more surprising than her supposed witchedness) and in 1871 was in St Pancras as a general servant. She died in 1879 aged 42 of heart disease - more likely overwork, poor diet and living conditions - and her epithet is no odder than most.

As to the ghosts: there are supposedly regular sightings of a pair of Shuck dogs and other apparitions around the churchyard. A quick Google turns up all sorts of nonsense if you're interested.

Made redundant in 1983 it was subsequently severely damaged by vandalism and the chancel and nave were demolished in 1998. The tower was claimed by Orange as a mobile phone mast thus saving it for the future.

Restoration, though highly unlikely, is not impossible as much was saved and is kept in storage.

Knowing nothing about Pitsea, and being a transitory visitor, it's not really my place to comment on the town but this rang true.

ST MICHAEL. On a hill with a fine view of the Holehaven Creek and towards the Thames. 1871 by Sir Arthur Blomfield, with much restored W tower of c. 1500. - PLATE. Cup of 1568; Paten on foot of 1692.

PITSEA. A rapidly growing village four miles north of Thameshaven, it is built on the hills lining the marshlands by the river.

At the crossroads stands a lovely memorial statue, a Greek maiden carrying a torch, a spray of laurel for our heroes.

On a high knoll is perched a church dedicated to St Michael, as are so many churches on hilltops. This one has been rebuilt except for the 16th century tower, with its embattled parapet and gargoyles. In it is a bell which has been ringing 500 years. The plain font is 16th century, and of the same age are the mason marks we noticed on the east doorway of the tower. The chalice was made in 1568 and the paten bears the arms of Sir Thomas Moyer, who lived in the 16th century hall, a timbered building with an overhanging storey.

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Vange

In the care of the CCT All Saints was the only intact church of the day that was open and that fact alone makes it stand out. Sadly, however, a heavy handed restoration and more recent vandalism has left little of interest although a Norman chancel arch, a C12-13 font and the remains of a C17 three deck pulpit remain. Not a great church but open which makes up for a lot round these SE parts of Essex.

ALL SAINTS. A small church, on its own, on the escarpment of the Thames. Nave and chancel and small bell-turret. In the nave S wall remains of a Norman window. The church was restored in 1837, by T. Sneezum. He must be responsible for the E and W windows and probably also the W gallery on cast-iron columns. FONT. Square bowl on five supports. One side of the bowl is decorated with a zig-zag motif. C12-C13. - PULPIT with READER’S PEW below. - COMMUNION RAIL, partly C17.

VANGE. Here the Langdon Hills come down to the drained marshes of the Thames estuary, through which flows Vange Creek. The Thames is now away from the village, but for hundreds of years man fought a losing battle with the floods, landowners having to repair the embankment walls or forfeit their lands. So sadly beaten were they that in 1620 the Government sent for expert Dutchmen to set up stout walls, and gave them these forfeited lands as their fee.

So it was that Cornelius Vandenanker came here with hundreds of his countrymen, reclaiming the marshes from Dagenham to Canvey by transporting tons of chalk from the quarries at Grays, and in some places constructing three walls, one within the other. He amassed a great fortune by selling the marshes he had redeemed. There is a record that his wife was buried in Downham church in 1692.

Vange is now a fast-growing place, for though the Thames is away Thameshaven is spreading in. Its small church is solitary on a hillock projecting toward the Thames. No road approaches, a few elms shading the long path across the fields which brings us to the churchyard. The church, less than 60 feet long, is crowned with a tiny wooden turret perched on the nave. The manor was held for Bishop Odo, the Conqueror’s stepbrother, and the church was apparently begun about his time if we judge by its solid chancel arch. There is a blocked Norman window and a Norman font, its solid square bowl with rough zigzag lines on one face and foliage on the top.

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Fobbing

St Michael, locked no keyholder, is dominated by its massive tower and is otherwise rather nondescript - perhaps if I'd got inside it would have left a more lasting impression - although I did like the location.

ST MICHAEL. In the N wall one blocked Late Anglo-Saxon window visible from outside and inside. In the chancel N wall one small C13 lancet. The rest is C14 and C15. C15 the big W tower with higher SE stair-turret and diagonal buttresses - looking proudly across the marshes, C14 the S aisle as wide as the nave and separated from it by an arcade with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. C14 also the chancel and S chancel chapel (modern arcade pier). The timber S Porch is typical C15 Essex work. Original C15 roofs inside chancel and chancel chapel, nave and aisle. - FONT. C13, Purbeck marble, octagonal, with shallow blank trefoil-arched arcades; two panels to each side. - PULPIT, plain C18. - BENCHES in the S aisle, plain, c. 1500. - IMAGE. Virgin and Child, headless, only about 10 ins. high, C15? (S chapel, E wall). - PLATE. Cup of 1633. - MONUMENT. Inscription tablet of c. 1340: ‘ Fur lamur Jesu Crist priez pur sa alme ke ci gist pater noster et ave Thomas de Crawedern fur apelle’.

 

FOBBING. It is very compact with thatched and tiled roofs side by side, and an inn of the 15th century. The low hills on which the village stands are divided by a creek from the flat meadows reaching toward the Thames, which would still be marshes but for the river-wall built by Dutchmen 300 years ago. By the river stands a lighthouse on stilts.

The grey tower of Fobbing church is a landmark for miles, and by climbing the hundred stairs of the turret we can gaze out to open sea, or inland to the Langdon Hills, the heights of Essex. A round ring of stones above the 15th century west door shows us that the Normans started the tower, while a double-splayed window in the wall of the nave tells us of an earlier Saxon building. The door to the right of this window has remarkable strap-hinges 700 years old, and we notice their curious prongs. To the same period belongs the font, supported on eight pillars. A little barrel organ stands close by.

It is 600 years since the chancel, chapel, and aisle were added, the aisle being wider than the nave. A bearded king and a placid nun look down from the chancel wall, and inset in the wall is a stone inscribed in Norman French. The chapel has a gem of sculpture, Mary with the infant Jesus on her knees. Though it is but a fragment, we can realise how lovely it must have been when first placed by the altar. In the windows are fragments of old glass.

In one of the spandrels of the porch are the great head of a king . and a seated man boldly opening a dragon’s mouth. Fobbing comes into history with the ill-fated rising of the labourers under Jack Straw, one of the mystery men of history, towering as a dragon for three weeks, and dying at the executioner’s hands in the days of Wat Tyler and John Ball.

England was still in the Dark Ages, yet here was a marvel of organisation and co-operation which brought the men of Essex to East London at the very hour the men of Kent camped at Blackheath and the men of Hertfordshire at Highbury, while in all a dozen counties were in arms. Young Richard the Second rode to Mile End to meet the Essex men, heard their grievances, promised complete reform and pardon, and set 30 clerks to work writing out the necessary documents to implement his pledges. The rebels retired content to their homes, but as soon as quiet was restored, and concerted action by the peasants was no longer possible, the young king came upon them with an army and those who were not hewn down in the field were hanged.

Jack Straw left only a name. Associated with his rising was the immortal poem of Piers Plowman and the many writings of John Ball, who made Essex his centre, pouring out writings which were the direct forerunner of the political pamphlets of Milton and Burke.

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Corringham

This trip covered two churches in Thurrock, three in Basildon and  the remaining five in Castle Point and having expected to find most of them inaccessible I was not disappointed; having said that, I was slightly surprised to only gain access to two churches - one CCT and one ruined.

St Mary the Virgin was open for morning Mass (which doesn't count as I didn't get inside - it's a bit rude to record an interior whilst the Eucharist is being celebrated!) but is usually locked no keyholder.

Best described as a fantastic Norman tower with a Gilbert Scott nave and chancel attached; the massive tower has, at the top, original blind arcading and is one of the finest of its kind in Essex.

ST MARY. The tower is one of the most important Early Norman monuments in the county, without buttresses, and with two tiers of large flat blank niches below the parapet. The middle one of the upper row on each side is pierced, has a colonnette set in and serves as a bell-opening. Pyramid roof. The whole is in its severity and clarity extremely impressive. Inside, the tower arch facing the nave is small and has the plainest imposts. N aisle, N chancel chapel and chancel are C14, see the two-bay aisle arcade (octagonal piers, double-chamfered arches) and several Dec windows (but the chancel E window belongs to Gilbert Scott’: restoration of 1843-44). - SCREEN. An early example of timber-screens in the county; first half C14. To l. and r. of the doorway only one partition, of four lights, with thin columns with shaftrings as mullions and intersected ogee-cusped arches. Plain straight moulded top-beam. - PLATE. Paten of 1684; Cup dated 1685. - MONUMENTS. Brass to Richard de Beltoun, c. 1340, demi-figure of priest. - Brass to a civilian, c. 1450. Both in the chancel floor.

CORRINGHAM. Thameshaven is its child, born almost yesterday, while Corringham has grown old for a thousand years. Much water has come down the Thames since this gracious place grew up among the lovely fields; and it has yet an old-world charm. We must love it for its group of old things, timber cottages and a 15th century inn keeping company with a glorious chestnut standing like a sentinel by the church. The tree is ancient but the church is older, for fragments of its walls were here before the Conqueror marched on London. The north aisle and the chapel are 14th century. The church tower is Norman and can have changed very little; it is immensely strong and has tiny windows but no buttresses, and its belfry has Norman arcading, with a roof like a hat too big for it. The tower arch has a keystone with a little head 800 years old. Among the treasures of this church so like a fortress are old bench-ends with carved panels; fragments of medieval glass with two angels and a dragon; two quaint old chests; and a fine oak screen with rich tracery, the work of a 14th century craftsman. The chapel has lost its brass portrait of Isabel Baud, who has been sleeping here 600 years, but the chancel has a civilian brass of 1460 and the brass portrait of one of its medieval priests, Richard Beltoun.

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District Councils

Leigh on Sea - St Margaret of Antioch

Oh dear. Locked no keyholder. Apparently the south door is open (but this is not made at all clear) and I've had my hand slapped by Fr Booth. He is, of course, correct in implying that I should have checked all the doors but, in my defence, I found the brutal architecture of the exterior so ugly that all I wanted to do was get away - and anyway the church, in my opinion, appears so unwelcoming as to positively discourage exploration.

ST MARGARET, Lime Avenue, Leigh. 1931 by Sir Charles Nicholson. A remarkably restful interior with arcade of Tuscan columns, or rather circular piers without entasis. Apse at the E end, open timber roof, lightly painted. The exterior also points to Early Christian inspiration.

Leigh on Sea - St Clement

Locked no keyholder, St Clement is in a stunning position but is fairly run of the mill - made more so by being inaccessible for no apparent reason.

ST CLEMENT. High above the sea with steps down to the village High Street by the shore. C15 W tower with diagonal buttresses, W door with shields in the spandrels, three-light W window, battlements and higher stair-turret. C15 N aisle with four-light W window (Perp panel tracery) and three-light N windows, chancel and S side C19. S porch of brick, with thick brick doorway and two-light W and E windows. N arcade of four low bays with octagonal piers and double-hollow-chamfered arches. - STAINED GLASS. C18 Crucifixion, very pictorial, with sinister grey clouds; E window. Chancel S window of two lights with replicas of two of Reynolds’s figures for New College Oxford, with incongruous Gothick canopies added. By Eginton (?). - MONUMENTS. Brass to Richard Haddok d. 1453, two wives and son, also small kneeling children below, the larger figures c. 16in. - Also two C17 brasses. - Robert Salmon d. 1641, Master of Trinity House, with frontal demi-figure between pilasters.

LEIGH. It stands on a hill which may justly be called a sentinel of London’s river, and the imposing tower has been a landmark to seamen for 400 years. Figures holding shields look down from the original roof of the church on the oldest portraits in Leigh, the ancestors of her most famous sons. There are two brasses on the same stone with 26 portraits in all, Richard Haddock, his wife, and their 10 children, with his son, his two wives, and their 11 children, all in Tudor costume. In one century this family gave two admirals and seven captains to the navy, and the family still cherishes a cap which Charles the Second took off his head and put on the head of Richard Haddock after a battle in which his ship had been wrecked. There are brasses in the chancel to Richard Chester, a master of Trinity House in the 17th century, and to Captain John Price of Queen Anne’s day. Another master of Trinity House has a painted bust here, showing him in his ruff as he was in Civil War days. He is described in pompous language as the great instrument of God’s glory and the Commonwealth’s good, restorer of Navigation almost lost, whatever that may mean. We may be sure he would be at the funeral of William Goodlad, who died a year or two before him after having been commander of the Greenland fleet for 20 years. There is a tablet placed here by four sons in memory of another seaman, their father William Brand, who commanded the Revenge at Trafalgar; all four sons lived to see the centenary of the battle.

It is said that the Mayflower called at Leigh for provisions, and it may well be so, for her flour was milled at Billericay not far away. In one of Leigh’s old buildings is a loft which two centuries ago was the meeting-place of smugglers. Today its sham romance has been turned into a real romance, for it is the meeting-place of Toc H, one of the noblest legacies of the Great War.

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Leigh on Sea - Our Lady of Lourdes & St Joseph

I passed OLoL&SJ (apologies for the acronym) on my way to St Clement and had to stop. This RC church had fallen off my radar and would have been missed had it not been so arresting.

Built in the 1920's to the design of the parish priest, Fr FW Gilbert, it stands as his personal testament to God. Full of good period glass, a very Catholic reredos, lectern and rood; unusually a SE tower but, to my mind, the most exceptional feature is the Lady Chapel which is a scaled replica of Lourdes.

A rich priest's homage to Gothic architecture with a distinct Catholic twist - I wish this was my parish church!

Neither Pevsner nor Mee covered it (inherent anti Catholicism at work?) so Taking Stock instead:

An idiosyncratic Gothic church of the 1920s, very much a personal work by the parish priest Fr F. W. Gilbert, but closely following the design of Charles Nicholson’s church of St Alban at Westcliff-on-Sea. The church was  sympathetically extended in the 1960s. The interior is rich in fittings, some designed by Fr Gilbert.

The original church (now the parish hall) began life as a timber-framed, corrugated iron drill hall, originally built for the Essex Volunteers in 1900 under the supervision of Major Burles and purchased in 1913. The site of the present church was purchased by the Rev. F.W. Gilbert in 1924, using donations and his private money. It appears that Fr Gilbert acted as his own architect, his design borrowing heavily from that of the Anglican church of St Alban the Martyr at Westcliff-on-Sea, built in 1898-1908 from designs by Nicholson & Corlette. The Gilbert family promised £2,000 once building work commenced. The contract price was £12,234. The builders were Messrs Marshall & Smith of Grays but Fr Gilbert acted as his own clerk of works, using local labour, including unemployed men from Grays. The foundation stone was laid on 7 October 1924 and the church opened in September 1925. The presbytery was built in 1925.

The church was sympathetically extended in 1965-66 by Burles, Newton & Partners, in the same style and materials; the west wall was moved twenty feet further out to create a choir gallery, west door and porch and a baptistery with organ chamber above. Proposals to replace the old hall with a new and larger building were prepared in 2007 but have not yet been implemented.

The church is a large and handsome structure in a free Gothic style. The walls are faced with random rubble with stone dressings. Apparently much of the stone was quarried near Glasgow and was originally used as ballast in lighters intended for the Gallipoli campaign, which were later bought by a local shipowner, who donated the stone for the building of the church. The roof is covered in plain tiles. On plan the church comprises a long nave and sanctuary under a continuous roof swept down over north and south aisles, southwest porch, northwest organ chamber, southeast double transept and southeast tower.  The gabled west end is Burles & Newton’s work of the 1960s and has a broad straight-headed doorway flanked by small trefoiled windows with a large six-light traceried window above. On the north side is a tall transeptal organ chamber and then the low side wall of the north aisle with three pairs of small trefoiled windows. On the south side is a small projecting porch and then the low side wall of the south aisle, a double transept with three-light traceried windows in the gabled ends and then the bold square south east tower. The tower is of three stages with a traceried two-light window on the south side of the lowest stage and pairs of small openings in the two stages above. The tower has a single large diagonal buttress at the southeast corner, crenellated flint-faced parapets and a tiled spirelet. The east end wall of the sanctuary is articulated with three round-headed blind arches. This wall fronts the garden of the large presbytery which is attached to the northeast corner of the church, and the church and presbytery together form a strong architectural composition.

The interior walls are all plastered and painted with plain flooring of timber. There is a west gallery in the 1960s extension and nave arcades of four bays of simple pointed chamfered arches on square chamfered concrete piers. Above each pier the nave is spanned by the tie beams of the roof and above them is a five-sided timbered ceiling. The aisles have lean-to roofs and are also timbered. The east bay on the south side is a small transept. There is no chancel arch in the usual sense, but the division between nave and sanctuary is marked by pilaster strips on the walls with a rood beam at half- height and a timber rib spanning the roof between them. The sanctuary has a single large open arch on each side and is richly furnished. The east wall in particular is lined to full-height with carved decoration. The floor is black and white marble.  On the south side of the sanctuary is a second transept divided from the first by a double arch resting on dwarf double columns with ornamental Gothic capitals. In the east wall of this transept a chamfered pointed arch leads to the base of the tower which contains a Lourdes grotto.

The church is rich in fittings. These include the carved timber reredos filling the whole east wall, the extraordinary pulpit with figures of evangelists supported by cherubs, apparently designed by Fr Gilbert, who also designed the figures of the rood beam, the elaborate oak stalls in the sanctuary and the font at the west end of the nave given in memory of Col. Knight (d.1891) with its stone bowl on clustered columns and a surrounding floor of Cosmati work.

There is some stained glass in the church including the west window by Whitefriars and other windows by Goddard & Gibbs. The scale model of the Lourdes grotto was built by Cyril Psaila (d. 1931).

 

 

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Westcliff on Sea - St Saviour

Locked no keyholder. I rather, against my better judgement, liked St Saviour for reasons which elude me. Built in 1910-11, and consecrated on 21st July 1911, in yellow brick and expanded in the 20's and 30's - on the face of it there's nothing particularly to like here; I think it's the clean lines and maritime feel that attracts.

I'm ambivalent regarding its locked status, on the one hand I don't think it would be of any interest but on the other there might be some good glass; we'll never know.

Neither Pevsner nor Mee mention her* but I did find this.

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* I know that the dedication is to Jesus (technically it should be Holy Saviour rather than St Saviour) and that therefore this should be he rather than her but I think most churches, like ships and cars, are female rather than male - although Saxon and Norman buildings are exceptions.

Prittlewell - Priory

In 1536 most of the building was destroyed and what remained was much altered during the 18th Century. Alterations were made again in the early 20th Century, when the Refectory was restored and partly rebuilt. A number of original features do survive, including a 12th Century doorway with chevron and dog tooth ornamentation.

A massive restoration project was undertaken in 2011 and the priory is now open to the public and while not much of the original remains what does is interesting (mainly the refectory and prior's chamber).

PRITTLEWELL PRIORY, Priory Park. The priory was founded from Lewes, the chief Cluniac Benedictine house in England, in1I121. Of the buildings little survives. What is most prominent now is the Refectory on the S side of the former cloister and the W range of the cloister, containing probably the Prior’s quarters. The church adjoined the cloister on the N, and no more than a few odd walls of it can be made out. The REFECTORY of c. 1200 has its original, though much restored, doorway with two orders of columns with crocket capitals and a pointed arch with zigzag and dog-tooth decoration. Inside the Refectory there is no more of original work left than one lancet window with keeled shafts and dog-tooth decoration, and the splay at the foot going up so steeply that the exterior form is a pointed trefoil. Against the same wall a fragment of an arch with nailhead ornament, re-set. C15 roof with tiebeams, king-posts and four-way struts. The W RANGE is two-storeyed. It contains of original work a roof similar to that of the Refectory and one fireplace. The S front of this range is Georgian, of four bays and cemented.

PRITTLEWELL. Its tiny group of fishermen’s huts at the south end have grown in a hundred years into the greatest Southend of all, the Londoner’»s seaside, a crowded pleasure place, noisy and happy as a medieval fair ground, but with nothing else from those days until we come to Prittlewell, a mile from the wide open mouth of the Thames.

Here a medieval church stands high at the cross-roads in company with a few odd little cottages, and in a lovely garden to the north of it is the priory and now serving Southend as a treasure-house. The church was here before the priory, for in its chancel wall is an arch built of Roman tiles by a Saxon mason. The Normans and their heirs re-shaped the vast building, and some time about 1470 stone was quarried in Kent for the magnificent tower; it is strong enough still to bear the swing of ten bells, one weighing nearly a ton. Flintwork adorns the top of the tower and the two-storeyed porch, where a 400-year-old door with 20 rich panels and its old iron ring opens on to a 13th century arcade pierced in the original Norman wall. The arcade ends in slender Tudor arches replacing those which once held up a central tower and making the nave now 100 feet long. Tudor masons cut the font with roses and pomegranates, and about the same time a Flemish craftsman carved the two panels framed on the wall, one showing winged beasts with necks entwined; they probably once formed part of a chest. Close by is the stone coffin lid of a 13th century priest.

Painted glass, old and new, adds to its beauty. Above the chapel altar are 20 vivid Bible scenes brought from Rouen and Italy. One showing the Temptation is thought to be by Albert Durer; another shows the three men in a realistic fiery furnace. A lovely modern window close by portrays two bishops over 1300 years apart - Cedd, who brought the Good News to Eastern England, and John Watts-Ditchfield, the first Bishop of Chelmsford, who is still recalled with special affection in the slums of East London. Galahad and King Arthur, St Michael and St George, appear as small glowing figures in the porch.

The church was given to the priory which Robert FitzSweyn founded in early Norman times, and eight centuries later the priory with its 35 acres of garden was given to the town by Mr R. A. Jones, who now rests in the cloister with the monks whose ancient home he lived in and restored. Today their home and his is, open to all. We may wander by the River Prittle and come upon the old fishponds, and here is a 13th century wall, all that remains of the church the monks worshipped in; though its foundations prove it to have been 180 feet long with great transepts flanking a central tower. The refectory on the opposite side of the cloister has mostly been built up again, but still retains one Norman wall with one Norman window standing out among the rest, and with a doorway still beautiful, though it has needed much patching since the prior first stopped on his way through it nearly 800 years ago to admire the deep mouldings and the leafy capitals. There are beams in the refectory roof 500 years old, and glowing in its windows are modern shields of all who have made their home here down the centuries. Illuminated manuscripts are in cases and frames, and behind a Jacobean altar rail is the memorial to 1350 men of Southend who fell in the Great War.

Passing into the Prior’s House on the west side of the cloister we first come to two vaulted 15th century rooms, the first containing part of the lead coffin in which some Roman was buried near the park, a Norman coffin lid, and many a stone from the priory church; the second with some worn timbers from Rayleigh Castle, the home of the priory’s founder. Over these vaulted chambers is the timber-framed room where the priors lived and worked, a beautiful room, with the smoke of their fires still left on the magnificent 15th century roof of five bays with two original kingposts. The 16th century put in the fireplace here today, and here is furniture made in the lifetime of the last prior and three things from the end of his story - the seal he had to give up and two documents transferring his priory to avaricious courtiers. The first is a letter from Henry the Eighth, with his portrait and part of the royal seal, granting the priory to Thomas Audley; the second bears the portrait of the boy king Edward and transfers the property to Lord Rich; both documents are superb examples of penmanship.

As we stand where he stood for the last time, looking down on the quiet of the cloister, we can hardly resist a feeling of pity for Thomas Norwich, who saw his priory become the loot of the king and his favourites. Rooms added by later owners are now filled with treasures from the Stone Age onward, and so arranged that we can walk up the corridors of time, past Stone and Bronze Age implements, past a skull 4000 years old, past net-sinkers and loom weights of the Iron Age, Samian ware and Roman coins, pagan swords and a garnet set in gold by Christian Saxons, past weapons and household oddments of the last ten centuries to our own time.

Another beautiful structure which survived in this place is Porters, a red brick house with gabled wings which grew up in the 16th and 17th centuries and still keeps its panelled rooms, the hall with linenfold and carvings of kings, with great beams in the roof and an Elizabethan stone fireplace carved with masks and acanthus leaves. With this house, the priory, and the noble church, Southend’s mother village can still draw the crowds away from the sea to wander for an hour or so in another world.

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