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St Mary, Maldon

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Maldon is one of the most interesting of Essex's smaller towns, and its central parish church of All Saints sits on the street above, but St Mary is down on the quayside, a sailor's church. It is a traditionalist Anglo-catholic church, as the sign at the gate reading The Sacrament of Reconciliation is offered here - a Priest is always available to hear your confession might suggest. From the churchyard there is a fine view of the Blackwater estuary, and moored below the churchyard was the Thames barge Hydrogen, which I often see moored on Wherry Quay at the bottom of my road in Ipswich. The materials of St Mary are a common Essex mix of red brick and flint. It would be difficult to photograph the church from the north or east other than from on board a boat, but there is a good view to the south where you will also find the octagonal extension of the 1980s. You enter the church through the rugged north porch and step into an interior which is by no means that of a neat Anglo-Catholic temple, more a pleasingly rough and ready barn of a place. Mark Angus's striking window of 1991 commemorating the Battle of Maldon is memorable. Other glass includes an early 1920s rendering by Pearce & Cutler of James Clark's The Great Sacrifice, with members of the other services looking on from the flanking lights, erected in memory of the parish dead of the First World War. It would certainly have been odd to have a war memorial here which did not feature the Navies. In general, the interior of the church is sparingly and appropriately furnished with High Church fixtures and fittings collected from redundant churches in the same tradition. The rood group above the chancel arch came from St Andrew, Plaistow, the pulpit from Mashbury. The chancel is cleared of clutter and rather sparse in comparion with the beautifully furnished 1930s lady atlar in the south aisle. A modern statue of the Blessed Virgin in a 14th Century image niche in the north wall forms a little shrine to Our Lady of Maldon. Everything is seemly, a church where it is possible to step out of time into eternity, if only for a few moments. Simon Knott, May 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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