THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE
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St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham
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Castle Hedingham and Sible Hedingham are two large villages which merge into each other across the infant River Colne in the rolling hills of north Essex. The Hedinghams are quite different in character. Sible Hedingham, a corruption of 'Civil' Hedingham, is much the larger, a working village of housing estates and small factories on the old Cambridge to Colchester road, whilst Castle Hedingham, with its castle, tea shops and pargeted houses, is a pretty tourist village. Both parish churches are big, Castle Hedingham's much the grander, and indeed one of the finest Norman buildings in the county.
The mighty Tudor red brick tower is a reflection of the power and influence of the castle, for it was built at the bequest of the De Veres, the Earls of Essex, some of ehom are buried inside. A stone plaque records its completion as late as 1616. Otherwise this is a complete Late Norman church, and, as Pevsner notes, one of the most ambitiously designed in Essex. The east and west ends are quiet moments, taking a back seat to the grand Norman arcading, completing a quite different picture to the great Perpendicular churches a few miles to the north that draw our eyes onwards and upwards. Here, it is as if we have entered a forest of dark wood and stone, of colour emerging from shadows, without any thought of our journey's end.
Misericords survive in the chancel stalls, including one of a fox carrying off an upside-down human figure who may be a priest. There is a good De Vere tomb of 1539 and the carved Norman holy water stoup is an unusal thing to find in Essex. The 15th Century screen survives and is a good one by Essex standards, but continued wealthy patronage meant that the church underwent an overwhelming 19th Century restoration, of which the font is a rather alarming example. Ernest Geldart designed the rather fine west window, made and installed by Percy Bacon & Bros in the 1890s. Hardman & Co got the commission for the rest of the glass, and Powell & Sons the opus sectile and mosaic work. All in all a building of quality, whichever century's eyes you look at it through.
Simon Knott, May 2020
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