THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St Anne and St Laurence, Elmstead

Click on the 'play' symbol in the second image to see all my photographs of this church as a slide show, then click on any image in the slideshow to see it large in a new page. Alternatively, if you don't have flash enabled, you can go straight to the set for this church on flickr. I'd stopped at Great Bromley, one of the grandest of Essex churches and one I love to go back to, but my real goal for the morning was the next church, St Ann and St Laurence, Elmstead, the only church in this part of Essex which I hadn't yet visited. However, in crossing the A120 I knew I was entering locked church territory. Elmstead Market is a grotty little town in the parish of Elmstead, half a mile or so of kebab shops, second hand car lots and sports pubs in outer-Colchester suburbia, but the church is alone beside the Hall a mile to the north along a narrow lane. The A120 drones through a cutting to the north of the church. A squat little thing, the truncated tower forming the south porch with a brief south aisle extending eastwards. The church itself, essentially C14, is covered with a depressing C20 render and its charm lies mainly within says Pevsner, but whether or not this is true I cannot really say. I walked around the church rattling all the doors and peering through the windows - there were box pews, Elizabethan wall texts and what looked like panels of continental glass in the east window of the south aisle. It looked nice, but it was hard to say more. A sign by the huge car park said 'the keys to the church may be obtained from the vicarage' and gave a number, but when I rang the number I was told 'the number you have dialled does not exist - please try again' which always seems a bit daft, as if it might exist if I did try again. I cycled back towards the town, and about halfway there spotted 'Elmstead Vicarage' on a garden gate. I thought I'd try the door of the house, but as I closed the gate behind me, a dog as big as a small cow stepped out of the shadows and watched me interestedly. The man who opened the door had no idea about any key. He'd only moved in this week, he wasn't the vicar, this wasn't the vicarage any more, he had no idea who the churchwardens were. All very depressing. The dog started going a bit loopy at this point, possibly because of my suppressed hysteria, and he had to control it to allow me to escape. Another church being let go as part of the Church of England's managed retreat? I couldn't say. But churches like this really, really shouldn't be allowed to apply for grant aid. By locking out all pilgrims and strangers, all they are doing here is maintaining a rather posh venue for their Sunday club and a cash cow for weddings. They shouldn't be able to use public money to do this - how would it be if I applied to English Heritage for money to redecorate my dining room because I wanted to eat my Sunday lunch in more salubrious surroundings? Pondering this, I pottered on for a pint on the quayside at Wivenhoe. Simon Knott, August 2014

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