Theydon Mount

St Michael is locked with no keyholder listed. The church really does sit on a mount above the Roding valley and has commanding views. It is brick built and dates to 1611/14. I thought it was a fine building but would have loved to have gained access (but then whatever the merits of a church I always want to gain access).

ST MICHAEL. Small brick church of 1611-14, built in the grounds of Hill Hall by the Smith family, owners of the mansion. The W tower is not high. It has diagonal buttresses and battlements and a (later?) recessed shingled spire. The W window has intersected tracery. So has  the E window. The other windows are of two lights under straight hood-moulds. The details do not seem to differ between W parts and chancel. Yet the bricks and the building are too different to allow for the same date. The stair turret adjoins the tower on the S and ends in a segmental gable. The windows are double slits of very odd forms. The S porch has a more elaborately shaped gable and a four-centred doorway and above it an uneasily balanced aedicule of Tuscan pilasters with pediment. The nave roof  has collar-beams on arched braces which form semicircles. - FONT. Unusually small, of stone, attached to the wall like a stoup; it stands on a pillar, and the bowl is as elegant as a hand-washing fountain in a Hall. - REREDOS. Late C17, with coupled Corinthian pilasters l. and r. of the E window. - BENCHES. Plain, late C16. - HELMS. One, C17, in the chancel, probably belonging to the monument of 1631. - PLATE. Cup and Paten of 1587; Cup with bands of ornament and Paten of 1614; large Dish on foot inscribed 1698. - MONUMENTS. All to the Smith family, an impressive series, crowding the small chancel. Sir Thomas, d. 1577. Standing wall monument. Figure stiffly reclining, head propped up on elbow. Shallow coffered arch behind the figure, flanked by two black Ionic columns with an entablature carrying two obelisks and a large achievement. Fine inscription plate with bold strapwork and fruit surround under the arch. - Sir William d. 1626 and wife. Standing wall monument with the two effigies both stiffly reclining with head on elbow; he a little higher and behind her. The background more or less as before and very little stylistic change. Kneeling figures of children against the front of the tomb-chest. - Sir William d. 1631 and two wives. Standing wall monument with recumbent effigy. Three big kneeling figures behind and above. - Sir Thomas d. 1668. Standing wall monument, of black and white marble, with no superstructure. The effigy again semi-reclining, head propped up on elbow. Thick angle volutes ending in cherubs’ heads. - Sir Edward d. 1713, simple white marble tablet, with a cherub’s head at the foot. By Edward Stanton. - The Rev. Sir Edward Bowyer Smith d. 1850. Large Perp Gothic tablet by ‘Osmond, Sarum’.

THEYDON MOUNT. It has a park on a hill, one of the most delightful hilltop parks that could be imagined, with a great house coming down from the age of the Tudors and a church from the days of Shakespeare.

The glory of the church is in the splendid tombs of those people who lived in the great house, two Thomas Smiths and two Williams. The first Thomas was the great Protestant Secretary of Queen Elizabeth, and we see him a stately bearded man in the mantle of the Garter, looking the scholar he was, lying on his side under an arch round which we read that "What the earth or seas or sky contain, what creatures in them be, his mind did seek to know." His nephew William lies on another tomb with his wife, two sons in armour, three daughters in veils, and two babies kneeling at a prayer desk as high as themselves. This man’s son William is gazing upward with his hands on a book and his two wives dominating the tomb. They are kneeling with a plump child in a grown-up dress between them. On the fourth tomb is his brother Thomas, his head on his hand, and cherubs guarding his altar tomb. On the wall above hangs a helmet.

The old house, built by the first Sir Thomas, has changed much down the centuries, but has on both fronts the original windows and the soft red bricks of Elizabethan days. Three gabled dormers looking down on the lawn are original, but the north front has an 18th century portico with four columns. In the windows are many heraldic devices of Tudor times, one glass panel showing a sea fight with ships of Drake’s day, and the oldest glass of all having on it the head of a girl of the 14th century.

Sir Thomas Smith was born at Saffron Walden in 1513, his family tracing its descent from the Black Prince. He went to Cambridge at 11, establishing there a reputation as a staunch Protestant. So brilliant was his scholarship that he became Provost of Eton, and reformed the pronunciation of Greek. His scholarship helped Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer in their reforms, while his tact and judgment were used by Protector Somerset who sent him as ambassador to foreign courts.

When Mary Tudor came to the throne he surrendered all his posts and went into retirement, settling down in marriage and rebuilding the hall here. Elizabeth, who knew his sterling worth, sent him as ambassador to Paris and afterwards made him Secretary. He died in 1577, leaving his lovely home to his nephew, and leaving behind his great work on The English State, an authoritative exposition on government which was not given to the world till six years after his death. The book ran through ten editions in a century and was translated into Latin, Dutch, and German, so that it must be regarded as one of the best-sellers of its time.

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Stapleford Tawney

In all honesty I can't bring myself to say anything complimentary about St Mary and when I look at the nave picture I actually think oh no, so I'll leave it to Mee.

ST MARY. Nave and chancel assigned to the C13, on the strength of renewed lancet windows and the blocked N doorway. Belfry on four posts; low E-W braces, higher N-S braces. Above the beams carried by the braces is cross-strutting in all four directions. - COMMUNION RAILS, C17 with square tapering openwork balusters. - PLATE. Almsdish of 1685; Large Cup and Paten inscribed 1698.

STAPLEFORD TAWNEY. It is on a hill which runs down to the River Roding. One of the farms has the dry moat of the vanished hall round its walled garden, and a line of huge chestnut trees screening it from the church. The wooden bell-turret, springing from the 13th century nave, has a shingled medieval spire seen from far and wide. There is a splendidly preserved coffin over 700 years old, a perfect little tomb with a lid on which the weather has not yet succeeded in obliterating the rare crosses. There is also an open coffin shaped for the head. On a wall is a tablet in memory of Henry Soames, a rector of last century, a shoemaker’s son who became famous as a historian, his chief works being histories of the Reformation and of the Anglo Saxon Church.

Even he struggled.

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Roydon

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again but I really shouldn't go on visits with preconceptions. The first was that Roydon is in Hertfordshire, it isn't it's in Essex, and the second was that St Peter wouldn't be up to much - but it is.

The chancel has been changed to the Colte Chapel and the altar moved to the north wall of the nave which is a decidedly odd arrangement but one that works. There are several brasses to the Coltes (Thomas More married Jane Colte who is depicted in a group on her father's brass) and others but the brass for John Colte d. 1471 is hidden under carpeting.

Other items include six hatchments, assorted monuments and a rather good font dating from 1300 with four heads wearing what look like bowler hats.

ST PETER. C13 nave, see one renewed lancet window on the S side. Next to it one of Dec and one of Perp style. The N aisle dates from c. 1330, see the windows (E and W of three lights with ogee-reticulated tracery) and the arcade (short octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches). W tower with angle buttresses and battlements. - FONT. An interesting piece of c. 1300. Octagonal with, in the four diagonals, four heads, men who are neither saints nor clerics, but look like workmen. They wear hats with rolled-up brims. - SCREEN. The side parts of five lights each with plain broad ogee arches and no tracery above them - C14, no doubt. - PLATE. Cup and Paten of 1564. - BRASSES. Thomas Colte d. 1471 and wife, the figures 3 ft long. - John Colte d. 1521 and two wives, smaller figures (2 ft 3 in.). - John Swifte d. 1570, 21/2 ft figure. - In the churchyard a fine TOMBSTONE for R. Crowe d. 1779, with Rococo decoration (F. Burgess).

ROYDON. It knew the first Englishman of his day 400 years ago, Sir Thomas More; he fell in love with one of the daughters of the moated house whose ruins are still an indication of the grandeur that has passed away. Its streets slope down to the River Stort, some of its shops and houses still looking medieval, the stocks and whipping-post on the green, with the little wooden lock-up close by, reminding us of the rough justice of not so very long ago.

It was to Nether Hall that Sir Thomas More came courting. The towers of its gatehouse still stand above the water of the moat; they were the first defence of a dwelling-house built when the houses of the red and white roses were fighting for the crown. There are still ancient corbels and trefoil arches round the towers.

The hall was the home of the Coltes. A Privy Councillor of Edward the Fourth, Thomas Colte was laid here to rest in 1471, and we see him in his splendid armour engraved in brass, his wife Joan beside him in a collar of suns and roses. In the sanctuary are the brass portraits of his son John with two wives, all in heraldic robes, their sons and daughters in groups below. It was one of these daughters Sir Thomas More came courting - two of them perhaps we should say, for there is a strange little story told of it.

Sir Thomas More’s affection was set on the second daughter, yet when he considered that it would be a grief and shame to the elder one to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage, he turned with a certain pity to Jane the elder, and married her four years before Henry the Eighth came to the throne. The purity of their home life is one of the redeeming features of the pitiless reign of Henry the Eighth, and it is difficult to forget the little story of that dramatic day when Jane Colte sat in church at Chelsea and received a whisper from the Lord Chancellor. Sir Thomas used to carry the cross at the head of processions round Chelsea church and sing in the choir, wearing a surplice like other choristers, and when service was over, and More had left the vestry, a footman would go to his wife’s pew and say, "His Lordship is gone." Jane was ambitious and liked such attention, and it is said that after his fall from office the Englishman did not know how to tell his proud wife that he had resigned the Great Seal of England, but in the end he broke the news by going to the pew and saying: "May it please your ladyship, my lordship is gone."

There are two other Tudor brasses in the church, one with John Swift in a fur-lined cloak, and one with the portrait of Elizabeth Stanley who died just after the Armada. There are little panes of medieval glass round a fine figure of Peter gazing across the sanctuary; three elaborately carved chairs three centuries old; and a fine screen carved with the simple tracery of 14th century windows, so that its ten bays look like the windows of a cathedral. The screen is still held together by its original oak pins. The font has been here since the church was new 700 years ago; it is remarkable for having been fashioned out of a square into an octagon by clever sculptors who carved four portraits of their friends at the corners, all four wearing hats with rolled brims, their faces full of character.

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North Weald Bassett

Because of the nearby airfield St Andrew's churchyard is packed with CWC headstones commemorating, mostly, members of the RAF who fell in World War II but also to nine members of C Company, The Essex Regt who were killed on 24 August 1940.

The 7th Battalion of the Essex Regiment had the task of guarding the aerodrome against ground attack, their quarters being the MT hangar on the eastern end of the technical site. When the air raid warning sounded, the tannoy ordered: ‘All army and air force personnel man your aerodrome action stations!’

The soldiers of ‘C’ Company, all young recruits aged between 17 and 19 years old, ran out of the hangar towards the shelter which stood near the end of the nearest H-block barrack. A stick of bombs began falling parallel to the main road, the thundering explosions rocking the ground. Just as the last man reached the shelter, a bomb scored a direct hit, blowing Private Nathaniel Miles into the overhanging oak tree, killing him and eight of his mates.

The nine dead soldiers were buried on August 28, eight in St Andrew’s Churchyard and Private Stephen Shuster in the Jewish cemetery at Rainham.

St Andrew was locked with no keyholder listed which is annoying as it sounds interesting.

ST ANDREW. A church mainly in the Dec style, see the arcade of octagonal piers with double-chamfered arches and the flowing tracery of the S chapel windows. The E window has the unmistakable hall-mark of ogee reticulation. The W tower is Early Tudor, of brick, with diagonal buttresses and battlements and W window of brick with Perp panel tracery. The N windows are C19. - SCREEN. The dado has linenfold panelling, an uncommon motif. The tracery was altered in the late C17 or the C18. The coving of the loft with rib-panelled underside is preserved - the only case in Essex. The screen is inscribed: ‘Orate pro bono statu Thome Wyher, diacon’. - STAINED GLASS. In the S chapel SE window C14 tabernacles. - In the S chapel E window glass by Tower, 1909. - PLATE. Cup of 1563; Plate of 1682. - BRASS. W. Larder D. 1606, wife and children (N wall).

 

NORTH WEALD BASSETT. Dominated by the bold tower of its church, it lies scattered between Ongar and Epping, named after that Norman Ralph Bassett who was Chief Justiciar to Henry the First, the king who gave us good laws. The tower, 66 feet high, is an excellent example of early brickwork, built in 1500 with a corbel table of tiny arches. The lofty brick tower arch inside frames the west window effectively. Though Roman tiles are dotted about the walls, the church, except for the chancel, belongs to the 14th century. The chief pride of the church is its 16th century screen of five bays. It has moulded posts supporting a fine canopy with traceried heads divided by pendants. The rail has running ornament and a prayer "for the good state of Thomas Wyher, deacon." The door has ornamental hinges 600 years old, and there is some 14th century glass, a 15th century bracket carved with oak leaves and a face, a huge wooden lock, 15th and 17th century carving on chairs, and a curious candlestick.

Engraved on brass are the portraits of Walter Larder, who was laid to rest here in 1606, and his wife and their five children. There are memorials to the Cockerells who lived in the vicarage for nearly a hundred years. The east window is in memory of Henry Cockerell, vicar for 52 years last century; and the glowing glass in the tower window showing the Presentation in the Temple is in memory of his son Louis, who succeeded him.

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Layer Marney

I first visited Layer Marney in March last year when the tower was closed for the off-season and, not realising you can visit the church independently of the tower, left with a few shots of the tower. It took a over year to re-visit but last week I returned with my youngest and visited both church and tower.

No one will ever quite forget their first view of Layer Marney Tower, reached at the end of a quiet lane some six miles south of Colchester. The enormous gatehouse is one of the most astonishing of Tudor buildings. There are several of these brick gatehouses in East Anglia - at Oxburgh, East Barsham, Hadleigh, Tolleshunt Major and Cambridge - but none on quite this scale.

It was built by Henry, 1st Lord Marney in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign, to whom, as previously to Henry VII, he was Captain of the Bodyguard. He died in 1523, leaving the Tower much as we see it today, with East and West wings to the gatehouse and an isolated South range, but no completed courtyard.

Castles were out of fashion but the medieval tradition still dominated in tower and in plan; yet the detail of window and parapet in terracotta was startlingly new and Italian, and unique in contemporary building. Very soon this early Renaissance was checked in its infancy by the breach with Rome.

St Mary the Virgin was rebuilt by Henry, Lord Marney, and John, second Lord Marney, as part of the ambitious Tudor Mansion started in the first quarter of the 16th century, and left unfinished in 1525 on the death of the second and last Lord. Their wills made provision for the Church to be finished.

It consists of nave and chancel with west tower and two south porches; and north chapel, aisle, and priests’ chamber as chantries for the two lords. It is all in the Perpendicular style and built in

Tudor brick (reputed to be locally made), and with lavish use of Essex oak in the roof, bell-frame, stairs, doors, and furnishings.

Interesting external features are the Tudor chimney to the priests’ chamber, the embattled parapets, and the diapering in the brick work. It is reputed that the lead roof on the north aisle was stripped off and sold during the Civil War.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN. Rebuilt to the W of the house, of brick with blue diapering throughout. W tower of a type frequent in Essex (cf. Ingatestone, Rochford, Stock, etc.) with diagonal stone-dressed buttresses, battlements and polygonal stair-turret. The W window of three lights with a depressed head and an odd variety of intersected tracery as favoured 200 years before. The two-light bell openings with a transome. Embattled S aisle. S porch and S chancel porch (a rare addition) with stepped battlements. The windows all with four-centred heads, and all of brick. The E window is of five lights with Perp panel tracery. At the W end of the N aisle a priest’s chamber with a chimney which adds to the W view of the church an element of surprise. The arcade piers inside as well as the tower arch have semi-octagonal shafts and hollows in the diagonals. The roof has tie-beams, but at the rood-place the tiebeam is enriched by braces and braces up to the collar-beam - a hammerbeam effect without hammerbeam. - PULPIT. Made up of various bits. The tester is c. mid C17. - SCREENS. The rood screen has one-light sections with ogee arches and a little panel tracery above. - The screen to the Marney Chapel is severely plain, only straight lines. The sections of two lights separated by iron mullions. - BENCHES in the nave with some linenfold and early C17 panelling. - CHEST. Very long, iron-bound, C14 or C15. - PAINTING. Large C15 figure of St Christopher, curiously rustic for a place so intimately connected with the taste of the court. It helps to date the church. - STAINED GLASS. Figure of St Peter, early C16, and several  heraldic medallions, N chapel, E window. MONUMENTS. Sir William Marney d. 1414, alabaster, on a tomb-chest with elaborately cusped quatrefoils and shields. The knight wears bascinet, camail, and hip-belt, as was the fashion. Round the tomb six original oak posts with zigzag carving. - Henry Lord Marney d. 1523. Between chancel and Marney chapel. The composition of tomb-chest, recumbent effigy and canopy above is in the Perp taste, but the detail is all of the Early Renaissance. What is more, it is executed in terracotta, a material favoured by the Italians at the Court (cf. below). The tomb-chest has panels with shields separated by balusters, the lid and the beautifully carved effigy are of black marble. The canopy has balusters and Renaissance foliage, but they are not used in a Renaissance spirit. The angle pilasters e. g. clearly suffer from a Gothic hangover, and the canopy has pendants for which the designer does not mind using Ionic capitals. On the canopy four semicircular pediments or gables or acroteria - a predominantly Venetian motif. - John Lord Marney d. 1525, clearly by the same hands. The effigy of the young man has all the characteristics of that of his father. The tomb-chest is simpler, but also terracotta and also with balusters. The monument is organically connected to the W with a chantry altar placed at r. angles to it. The decoration is again the same. - Robert Cammocke d. 1585, chancel S wall, tomb-chest on which stand two short Tuscan columns supporting an entablature. Brasses (without figures) against the back wall.

LAYER MARNEY. Who sees it once does not forget it ever. Here for 400 years has stood one of the most imposing buildings in England, the gatehouse of the home Sir Henry Marney planned for himself in the place where his ancestors had lived from Norman times. Alas, he had ancestors but no descendants. He died before his wonderful house was finished, and the next year died his only son without an heir.

Sir Henry Marney was one of the trusted friends of kings, Privy Councillor to Henry the Seventh, traveller to the Courts of France and Italy, Captain of the Guard and Keeper of the Privy Purse. So it was that he persuaded the king’s architect, Girolamo de Travizi, to design his new house. He made it one of the amazing sights of Essex. The gatehouse is of brick and terracotta, the black bricks forming a pattern among the red. It stands 80 feet high, turrets of eight storeys flanking two great windows above the archway. The lower turrets climb beside them, while two square turrets rise to the full height behind. There are transomed windows, Corinthian capitals, and Italian scroll work, and the parapets are richly decorated, those of the turrets with little dolphins. The two remaining fluted chimneys, equal in beauty to those at Hampton Court, are a fitting crown to this marvellous place.

On each side of the gatehouse are wings two storeys high with fine windows and doorways, and fitted with splendid fireplaces. But the place was never finished, for the dreamer of this magnificence, made a baron in 1522, was borne to rest in 1523 in the church he had built beside the house. He is on a splendid tomb by the tomb of his son John, his features chiselled in fine black Cornish marble by an Italian sculptor. Near them is the elaborate tomb and armoured figure of Sir William Marney who died in 1360, and round this tomb, silent watchers since Sir Henry refashioned the church, sit carved leopards on spiral posts, grasping shields with Marney badges.

There are two beautiful screens in the church, the chancel screen with rich tracery of the 15th century, the other with Tudor linenfold. The pulpit, too, is linenfold with a 17th century canopy, and a book-rest finely carved. On the wall is a painting of St Christopher carrying the Child, and in a window of the Marney Chapel is fine heraldic glass. Tower and turret, porch and walls, are all embattled, fitting well into this scene, and in front of it all the green slopes away toward the coast beyond a lovely garden.

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Colne Engaine

A nice lych gate from 1912 greets you on a pretty road in the middle of the village, with dominating St Andrew on top of the hill. I approached from the north and the church is barely visible, it was not until I hit the south that I realised how commanding it is.

The chancel, nave and aisles are 14th century (as usual extensively altered over successive years) whilst the handsome brick tower is Tudor built by John de Vere, Earl of Oxford - or at least under his orders.

Heavily restored much of it's internal interest has been lost.

ST ANDREW. The W tower with diagonal buttresses is C14 below, early C16 brick above, with battlements on a trefoiled corbel frieze and polygonal pinnacles. Norman nave, see the W quoins and N and S traces of windows. Much Roman brick re-used. In the chancel a doorway and a blocked lancet window of the early C13. The S porch is of brick, with stepped battlements and an older timber gable above. No fittings of interest.

 

COLNE ENGAINE. It is grouped round its church on a hill and has commanding views of the Colne valley. There are Roman tiles in the Norman nave, and a tower which was begun in the 14th century and finished 200 years later with two stages of brickwork. Its battlements and pinnacles project over a corbel table, and on one side is a shield with a mullet, the crest of the Earls of Oxford who were neighbours in the next village. We see the beautiful Tudor brickwork again in the porch, which has a stepped arch over the doorway with a new lead figure of St Andrew. The nave roof is 500 years old, and one of its corbels is a man who has been laughing all the time. There is a handsome modern eagle lectern, a fine 14th century piscina, and a brilliant east window showing the King of Kings and St Michael in a company of saints and martyrs and angels kneeling on the clouds. The church has a link with London and the Bluecoat boys. Its rectors are appointed by the Lord Mayor in his capacity as Governor of Christ’s Hospital, and here on the wall are tablets to two who were headmasters of that school. In the 100 acres of Colne Park stands a tall column put up in 1791 by the famous architect Sir John Soane; and a mile or so away is Hungry Hall, which, in spite of its name, has a great barn of seven bays in which to store the winter needs of man and beast.

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Cornish Hall End

St John the Evangelist is a brick built 19th century (1841) church situated in the centre of this small hamlet about 2.5 miles north of Finchingfield.

Mee missed it but the totally reliable Wikipedia entry states:

Cornish Hall End is on the B1057 three miles north of Finchingfield and 4 miles (6 km) south of Steeple Bumpstead in the Braintree district of Essex. The main part of the village is a ribbon development of about 60 houses on either side of the road with many outlying farms, hamlets and individual houses.

It is approximately 11 miles (18 km) from Braintree, Great Dunmow and Saffron Walden, and about 7 miles (11 km) from Haverhill in Suffolk.

Cornish Hall End is served by a Parish Council which also represents Finchingfield, Shalford & Wethersfield.

As far as I can tell it is always locked.

ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 1840 by J. D. Morgan (GR). Red brick with white brick dressings. In the lancet style with a W porch and W angle turrets. A bell-tower added in 1910.