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All Saints, Terling

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Having discovered the delights of nearby Fairstead church I was feeling very happy - the lovely weather, the wind in my hair, the sun on my face, such a beautiful little church, and now I headed a few miles south into a most beautiful village,Terling. The winding village street is lined with typical Essex plastered houses. The village shop is a large medieval building, presumably a Hall House with later 15th Century wings added. Unusually, the wealth here came not from late medieval commercialism and industry, but because the village was home to three Big Houses, one of which belonged to the fabulously wealthy Bishop of Norwich. Set back from the road in a large square, and in the grounds of the one surviving Big House, is the church. A big church, made doubly impressive by a large 18th Century brick and stone west tower which looks as if it is on holiday from the City of London, and wearing a jaunty wooden Essex spire as if to show it is having a good time. All castellated flint with big aisles and a clerestory, although as this is Essex the aisles don't continue into the chancel. You step into an enormous space, the nave wider than it is long, entirely of its rich 19th Century restoration, although there is a good surviving 14th Century font. A few brasses survive, but otherwise this is a Victorian vision of medieval piety. I actually rather liked it, a very confident sense of its own presence in the community. The chancel is lined with memorials to the Barons Rayleigh, who live in the big house, and the village is at the centre of thousands of acres owned by Lord Rayleigh's Farms. Simon Knott, April 2014 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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