Church Heritage Record id19505

West tower aisled, through which the church is normally entered; nave of five bays; chancel with south chapel and north organ chamber and vestries, the chapel and organ chamber arranged transeptally.

The tower is late Perpendicular, with an upper stage of 1729 and the battlements of 1911; it was the only part of the church to survive the siege of Colchester in 1684 , and the body of the church was rebuilt in 1713-14. This, however, was replaced in 1872 with a building designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield. The south transept was altered in 1922 by Sidney Gambier-Parry to form a War Memorial Chapel.

The substantial west tower is built of pale grey stone with a top stage of red brick. At the western corners are diagonal buttresses which rise through several off-sets to the parapet. At ground level is a plinth with stone panels alternately with pointed heads and cusped circles enclosing blank shields. At the south-east angle rises the stair turret, flush with the east face of the tower but projecting beyond the plane of the south face. The west wall is pierced by a doorway with moulded and shafted jambs and a two-centred arch under a crocketted ogee arch which formerly terminated in a finial breaking the line of the sill of the west window. In the spandrels are cusped circles with blank shields.

The nave and chancel exemplify Blomfield's practical approach towards the building of churches, and his desire to produce an auditory building which would be well constructed and satisfactory lit. lthough built of the eminently practical red brick, and therefore appearing distinctly urban, its proportions are nevertheless those of East Anglian churches, with a high clerestoried nave under a steeply pitched roof and wide aisles under almost flat roofs. The fabric is chiefly of red brick with some banding in black and blue bricks, and a few dressings executed in stone. The tiles on the nave roof are laid in alternating bands of two colours. The nave is of five bays, the aisle separated by thin buttresses but the clerestory a continuous plane of flat wall from west to east. The windows of the aisles are each of two lights with varying types of geometric and panel tracery, the two-centred heads outlined in voussoirs of alternating colours of brick. Over them, the parapets are decorated with trefoils in roundels executed in pressed brick. The aisle roofs are so low-pitched as to be invisible from ground level, and the clerestorythus seems to sit low above the aisle parapets. The windows are simple cinquefoils of stone sunk within roundels of brick. At the west end of each aisle are porches flanking the tower, each under a gabled roof.

The flat-roofed vestries on the north side and the little semi-octagonal apse were added to the south transeptal chapel in 1922. Otherwise the south transept is plain, with a cross-gable and some diaper decoration in black bricks near the apex of the wall. The window is similar to those in the aisles, but larger with three lights rather than two. The apse continues the materials and style of the church, with tiny rectangular lights with trefoiled heads in the canted walls and even smaller lights in wood in the equivalent slopes of the roof.

The east window of the chancel has five main lights of which the central one is taller than the other four; the tracery is Geometric incorporating two cinquefoils within circles (echcing the clerestory) and three trefoils within a bigger circle above.

The church is entered by the west door in the foot of the tower; this leads into the tall tower-space which opens into the church through an uncommonlylofty tower arch of two moulded orders , the inner carried on semi-circular shafts with moulded bases and capitals and the outer continuous to the floor. In the south-east corner is the small doorway to the tower staircase, and on the opposite wall is the only monument of specially good quality to survive from the previous church, with a seated marble figure of the father of the benefactor who rebuilt it in 1714, appearing to turn away from Blomfield's replacement.

The immediate impression of the nave now is a mixture of lightness and height, the former because of the large windows, for the most part filled with clear glass, and the white walls, and the latter because of the sharp pitch of the roof. The structure of the roof is straightforward with tie-beams and semi-circular arch braces above at each bay. Over the chancel arch is an additional beam set against the wall and bearing a rood with attendant figures. In contrast with the lack of colour elsewhere in the church, this is polychrome. The chancel arch is carried on short colonettes on corbels, and has only a single roll moulding along each edge. It is now filled with a later screen in Perpendicular style in oak.

Beyond, the chancel is in contrast rather dark, the result of few windows, heavily coloured stained glass and elaborate stencilled and painted patterns and devices on the walls. This decoration was completed in 1925 to a general design by George R. Phillips, the picture on the north wall within the sanctuary being by Herbert Bryan and finished by F.A. Jackson, who also executed all the other painted decoration. All the painting is done on canvas fixed to the wall surface, and not directly on the plaster. The east window stands within an arch.

The south chapel was created by the addition of a small apse within which stands the altar under a reredos with a painted central panel and the two small flanking windows incorporated as though they were the flanking panels. The apse is separated from the rest of the little chapel by a screen with coving in Essex oak like the dado panelling; the work was done by H. Everett (Builder) and the carving by Marshall of Coggeshall.