THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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no known dedication, Berners Roding

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Away from the main roads this is an intensely rural part of Essex, with more than a few long, rambling lanes eventually petering out in the middle of nowhere. Just off of one of them that runs through the Berners Hall estate sits this little church, long-abandoned and derelict. It appears to be substantially of the 14th Century, with a pair of fine red brick windows put in at the east and on the south side of the chancel in the early 16th Century, a typical material of that time in Essex and probably contemporary with the building of Berners Hall nearby. There was once a wooden belfry to the west, its demolition explaining why the porch is so severely set at the far west end of the south wall. Enough of the glass on the north side of the church is broken to permit a view inside, and it is pretty well empty apart from the altar rails and the pulpit. Two memorials are set either side of the chancel, and that on the north side is to the dear and happy memory of Augustus Littleton Chetwode who for 34 years lived at Berners Hall his much loved home. My great-great-aunt Julia Mortlock was the cook at Berners Hall at the time and was presumably present for the placing of this memorial. By the time of the 1911 census the Hall was in the possession of James, Charles and Caroline Glasse, two brothers and a sister from Morwenstowe in Cornwall. There was only one other servant. By 1919, the Hall farm had been sold to the Co-op, who have only recently resold it. I'm told that the Friends of Friendless Churches enquired about the possibility of taking the church off their hands and rescuing it, but it was sold with the rest of the estate. Simon Knott, December 2021 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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home - index - latest - e-mail
links - small print - about this site
Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
www.simonknott.co.uk