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.

Flickr.