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St Andrew, Good Easter

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It seems extraordinary that we are barely thirty miles from central London in this loneliest part of Essex to the west of Chelmsford. A narrow lane led me deep down into a cutting and a ford where the water was more than a metre deep in the middle, and the stretch of road covered by water at least ten metres. The sign saying 'unsuitable for motor vehicles' was something of an understatement, because no car could possibly have got through it, although most of the traffic around here seemed to be horses anyway. The towers of already-visited Pleshey and High Easter appeared on the ridge to the north, sentinels in the August sunshine. I came to the long village of Good Easter, and its church of St Andrew. The exterior is very attractive, the assemblage of nave, aisle and chancel beneath the proud spire, rebuilt after a fire late in the 19th century. You step into a barn of a church, pretty much all of its middle-brow refurbishing by Frederic Chancellor after the fire, including his alarming faux-Norman font. As is usual for Chancellor the nave is a bit gloomy, but there is a sweet contrast in the chancel, still all pretty much the 1880s work of famed local artist and priest Father Ernest Geldart. The glass is interesting of its kind, with characterful 1890s work by H J Salisbury in the chancel and 1930s glass by G J Hunt very much in the late Arts & Crafts style. A few fragments of 15th Century glass survive in a top light, including part of an angel enthusiastically swinging a thurible. All in all a church that is obviously well-loved and looked after. Simon Knott, June 2020 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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home - index - latest - e-mail
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Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
www.simonknott.co.uk