THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE
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St Mary, Fryerning
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Fryerning is one of those lush, pretty little villages you find so often in Essex, made to seem more remote than it is by local authority planning. In fact, it is really a suburb of the town of Ingatestone, only a few fields separating them, and their medieval churches are just a short walk apart. I had been here a few weeks previously, but on that occasion I had found that all five of the keyholders on the keyholder notice were out. Keyholder notices are unusual in Essex - churches are either open or locked, and mostly they are open - but I had seen enough from the outside to make me want to come back.
This is another fine red brick church, quite small, but a good setting for some interesting 20th and 21st Century glass,. The most striking is probaby the memorial window of 1985 to the MP Airey Neave, by his niece Penelope Neave. It depicts St Michael and St Christopher as well as roundels of Colditz Castle and the Houses of Parliament.
Neave was a Conservative politician with an extraordinary war record. Among other things, he had escaped from the Colditz prisoner of war camp (the castle depicted in the window), headed the MI9 secret service and as a young lawyer read the indictment to the Nazi leaders at the Nuremburg Trials. A hard-line right winger, he played queenmaker to Margaret Thatcher, ensuring that she was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 1975. Neave was assassinated by a car bomb in the Houses of Parliament car park in 1979, apparently by the Irish National Liberation Army, although in recent years there has been increasing speculation and a number of conspiracy theories about what actually happened.
Also memorable are two other recent windows featuring decorative floral glass by Lisa Morgan and Ian Carthy, and dating to the first years of the current century, but there are older survivals including a super 13th Century foliage font. All in all a church which is a little bit out of the ordinary.
Simon Knott, September 2013
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