THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St James, Greenstead Green

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. By now I had left the barley plain behind and was back in deliciously wooded and hilly country, and so I proceeded along narrow lanes to this long village on the outskirts of Halstead, with its tall village church. Open. An excellent Victorian church by George Gilbert Scott, elaborated later in the century by Arthur Blomfield, quite a pedigree. The spire is one of the tallest in rural Essex, and can be seen for miles. It looks all of Scott's work. Originally within the parish of Halstead, it was bankrolled by two millionaire families, first of all the Gees who paid for its construction, and then the Courtaulds (which QV) who maintained it. Fortunately, it is in the very friendly Halstead benefice and so is open and welcoming every day - even the porch gate was latched back open, which I thought was a nice touch. Magnificent externally, comfortably domestic internally. Locals obviously use it for making prayer requests and lighting candles, which I thought was lovely. Simon Knott, October 2012

 

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