THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St Lawrence, Saint Lawrence

St Lawrence is a popular dedication for churches on the Dengie Peninsula, to the extent that this parish and village even take the saint's name. After cycling some thirty miles since leaving Chelmsford, I turned off of the busy Bradwell road and was immediately presented with a narrow lane which appeared pretty much vertical. At the top, the pretty little church poked its spirelet coyly above the hedges. Well, I puffed and gasped my way to the top, and here I was rewarded with stunning views across the Blackwater. The village is more or less hidden from the church at the bottom of the hill, and I was looking out over it towards Stansgate, Tony Benn's country home, actually in Steeple parish, and beyond that the Bradwell nuclear power station. Out there somewhere was the 6th Century chapel of St Peter on the Wall, One of England's oldest churches, but I had been there before. This little church, not to be confused with the churches dedicated to St Lawrence in the neighbouring parishes of Steeple and Asheldham, was an 1870s rebuild by Robert Wheeler. Unusually for the peninsula, it was not rebuilt on a new site in its village centre. Perhaps the parish were seduced here by the drama and splendour of the old site on its hilltop. The pretty south side hides a meeting room to the north which is nearly as big. Inside, this is a simple country church, still entirely 19th Century in character. Simon Knott, April 2018

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