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St Mary and All Saints, Debden

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A journey through the polite, comfortable villages in the gently rolling Uttlesford hills brought me me to Debden, which claims to be twinned with somewhere in Nepal. On the main road another sign pointed to the church and said OPEN EVERY DAY. You go down a long track into the grounds of the Hall (demolished in the 1930s) to the extraordinary sight of St Mary and All Saints. If in Essex you go to Messing for a 17th Century chancel, you come here for an 18th Century one, but unlike Messing this is obvious from the exterior, too. Everything is spiked and glazed like a wedding cake. You approach from the east, which is extraordinary enough. From the west, it looks like a public school chapel with a more familiar Essex wooden bell turret bolted on. You step into a nave which is essentially that of the 13th Century, revamped with new windows and aisle in the 14th and 15th Centuries. But it is the 18th Century that brought us the church as we see it today. James Essex, best known for his work on the Cambridge Colleges including the famous Mathematical Bridge, was commissioned by Trench Chiswell of Debden Hall to encase the church in a Gothick confection. After Essex's death, Richard Holland rebuilt the chancel as a high octagon connected to the nave by a stairway up a passage, with the Chiswell mausoluem underneath. The further east you go, the less it feels as if you are in a church. Trench Chiswell was clearly up to date with the most modern technology, for he also commissioned a Coade Stone font to the striking and memorable design of Richard Holland. Simon Knott, May 2013

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