ST LAWRENCE. Entirely of the first half of the C14. W tower with diagonal buttresses and later brick battlements, nave and chancel. The windows are either cusped lancets or have some little ogee detail. The chancel S window, S doorway (with head-label-stops) and Sedile form a group. - PLATE. Cup of 1563 with band of ornament; Paten on foot of the mid C17.
ASHELDAM. The two groups of earthworks where the land rises above the marshes here were the bulwarks of our shores in ancient days. One has features of a plateau camp of the Ancient Britons; the other is remarkable, for its oval of 16 acres has the old hall, a great pond, and the church within its ramparts. The very tower of the church is itself a little stronghold, so thick are its walls, while Roman bricks border a narrow slit through which arrows could be shot. The church was made new in the 14th century, when curious headstops of monarch and monk were carved for the chancel doorway. Another mason then left his marks on the arch of the doorway in the nave, perhaps the earliest mason’s mark in Essex. The altar table is from the days of Queen Elizabeth; it has the bulbous legs which gave tables so quaint an appearance in her stately halls.
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