Church Heritage Record 633135

Nave, chancel, south porch. The church previously had a west tower and a north vestry.

Nave 20m (65ft) x 4m (13ft).

The medieval church would appear to be Norman in origin, the earliest architectural feature being a lancet of about 1200.  The other features date mostly to the 14th century, with some new windows and furnishings and the porch added in the 15th century.  The church was restored c 1843 after the west tower collapsed (the vicarage and schoolroom are said to have been built with material from the tower). The west end was rebuilt without a tower and the belcote added in its place.  The chancel was partly rebuilt in c 1870, and the interior refurbished.  There was a further restoration in 1904, including repair to the roofs.  There were repairs grant aided by the ICBS in 1950 and 1980, the latter to the south chancel roof.

Although the parish straddles the Roman road from Colchester to Norwich (here the A140) there is no known Roman occupation within a kilometre of the church.  However there is a significant scatter of Roman material in Stoke Ash parish to the north which indicates settlement (typically 500m plus back from the road line). 

The exterior of the church is a patchwork of flint and brick which would repay careful recording and study to unravel the history of the building.  It appears elongated and low due to the loss of the tower, the nave apparently extended to the west to the old tower west face, the small 3-stage gabled belcote with wheel cross finial at the west gable being no replacement in terms of vertical emphasis.  

The eastern half of the south and the east chancel walls have been heavily restored in 1870, clearly visible in the fabric. The south wall is pierced by two windows, the eastern of which is a restored pointed 2-light, stylistically of the 14th century, while the western window is an original square-headed window of the early 15th century, set lower in the wall.  Between them is a restored Priest’s doorway with a narrow pointed arch. The heavily restored 3-light east window has reticulated tracery.  There are large diagonal buttresses of two steep weatherings.

The nave has mainly 14th-century windows with pointed and segmental arches, mostly original with the exception of the pair at the west end, and one renewed square-headed 15th-century window to the west of the porch. A 14th-century north doorway with continuous mouldings opposite the porch has been blocked with hand-made bricks.  There are buttresses of two weatherings to the west bay only, added no doubt to stabilise the reworked west end after the collapse of the tower.

The rebuilt west end still has a 14th-century pointed doorway set in what looks like original masonry with continuous mouldings under an eroded hood-mould, with doors which preserve remains of panel tracery.  Above this and set back above a string-course is a 3-light window with cusped intersecting tracery and stained glass of the early 19th century, all of which suggests that the lower part of the west wall survives from the west wall of the lost tower, the rest rebuilt in c 1843.

The brick south porch of c 1500 or possibly earlier is of great interest as a preserved example of the period. The eaves of the porch roof impinge on the windows flanking it, proving that these are original; the tracery of the window to the east has been clumsily bricked in here. The porch has a moulded pointed entrance arch carried on shafted jambs, over this is a blocked cusped niche under a hood-mould, with a sandstone sundial inserted, much restored. There are small 2-light side windows of brick, badly eroded, the west window missing its mullion.

The whitewashed interior has a rather dilapidated and dusty appearance. At the north-west corner of the nave the doorway to the former tower stair still has its original door, the entrance now invisible from the outside.  The door can be pushed open slightly to reveal the blocking behind.  Adjacent to this are two possibly medieval pews with poppyhead finials, much restored, or of 1843; most of the pews are simple pine benches of 1870.  There is panelling around the walls, perhaps from the pre-1870 box pews.

Looking up, the 7-bay nave roof dates to the 15th century, with moulding and embattled ornament to the wall-plates, collar and “hammer-beams”; the braces between the hammer-beams and principal rafters have sweeping curves. The nave is said to have been re-roofed in 1904 re-using old material, although it seems more likely that only the cutting away of the original tie-beams to leave the “hammer beams” and the two narrower bays at the west end, reworked after the collapse of the tower, are substantially of this date.  The chancel roof is ceiled over, with moulded and embattled wall-plates.

There are simple choir stalls of 1870 in the chancel.  There is also a nice 17th-century chair and a reading desk comprised of ornately carved floral panels of roughly the same date.  There is a single step to the chancel and two steps to the sanctuary, which has stone flags.  In the south wall of the sanctuary is a simple 2-centre arched piscina and adjacent drop-sill sedilia, in which a stone wheel cross finial from the roof is laid.