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St Mary, Belchamp Walter

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Belchamp Walter will be well known to fans of the late 20th Century television series Lovejoy, particularly Belchamp Hall which became 'Felsham Hall' in the series. The church sits away from the village and close to the Hall in the surprisingly steep valley of the Belchamp Brook as it heads east to empty into the Stour. It is a substantial 14th Century structure, though without aisles or clerestories, its tower having the familiar Stour Valley stair turret and all in all looking more like a Suffolk church than an Essex one, not unreasonably given that the border is barely a mile away. Perhaps it was the gloomy weather on the day I visited, but I thought it wasn't a particularly attractive building, its chancel made long and low by a 19th Century restoration and its nave somewhat stark and disproportionately tall against the blockish tower. Be that as it may, you step into a warm and welcoming interior, homely and rustic with brick floors, an old-fashioned tortoise stove with its chimney rising into the nave roof as a memorable and pleasing period piece. And this church is more interesting than either of its two Belchamp neighbours, for it has one of the best ranges of wall paintings in Essex. The upper range is a Passion sequence, but the most interesting paintings are below, including several unique survivals in the county. The best of the Passion sequence includes a detailed Last Supper, Judas Iscariot shown holding the money bag and stealing a fish, St John with his eyes closed and resting on Jesus's chest. Elsewhere, Christ washes the feet of the Disciples and appears to them after the Resurrection. The lower subjects include a fine Martyrdom of St Edmund, the Blessed Virgin suckling the Christchild while a donor looks on, and part of the Three Living and the Three Dead story. There are some interesting other survivals. When the nave was constructed an elaborate tomb chest and canopy were built into the north wall as a memorial for Sir John Boutetourt who had died in the 1320s. There is no effigy, but as James Bettley notes it must once have opened into a structure beyond the north wall, for you can see the brickwork used to fill the opening in the wall outside. Circular Norman fonts are unusual in East Anglia, so that at Belchamp Walter may come as a surprise, its upper part carved with flowers and foliage. There are some good early 19th Century pre-ecclesiological glass panels including St Peter and St Michael, and some rather less good decorative glass from a few decades later. All in all a church full of quirky interest, so don't be put off by the rather austere exterior. Simon Knott, January 2022 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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