THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St Andrew, White Colne

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. I had come this way a few days earlier. Deceived by a brief burst of sunshine, I had set off from Pebmarsh church for dear old Chappel and Wakes Colne station a few miles further south, and decided to take in White Colne on the way. Well, I am ever one to exaggerate the narrowness, hilliness and windiness of lanes of north Essex, not to mention their surface water, but the lanes (if you will refer to your OS map) in the area bounded by Halstead, Pebmarsh, Bures and Chappel are something else again. Fortunately, I didn't meet a single car between leaving the last church and reaching the next one, but it did start to rain again, really heavily, and I was pretty soon the wettest I'd been. I arrived at All Saints and found it locked with a keyholder notice. If I'd told you then that this was a solidly built but over-restored little church with a west tower surmounted by a broach spire then I'd probably have been right, but I wouldn't have been able to swear to it. Visibility was poor, I was soaked and the rain was intense, and so I was in no mood to go looking for a keyholder who might or might not be in. Besides, the notice said that the church was Open every Tuesday and Wednesday from 9am to 3pm. I'll come back on Tuesday, I thought! A train left Chappel and Wakes Colne in 15 minutes, and I planned to be on it. I came back three days later in the last sunshine of a fine but fading afternoon. The little building looked well across the fields, gazing across the valley with the smoke of Chappel and Wakes Colne below. I pushed my bike enthusiastically up to the door. Locked. I'd say I couldn't quite believe it, but see Kelvedon. I rang the lady. "But it can't be locked!" she remonstrated. "He opens it at eight, and then locks it again on his way home at four!" I told her that, nonetheless, it was locked. "Oh for goodness sake," she said, "I'll be there in a minute". But she was very nice, and it turned out that her exasperation was with the failed unlocker and not with me. This is a prettier church inside than out, with the definitive feel of a small Victorian rural church interior. It has been recently redecorated, so it also benefits from a cool Anglican freshness. The curiosity is the pulpit, which appears to be 17th century, but has contemporary Flemish panels attached to it, and is thus most unusual. I hope it does not sound harsh if I say that I liked this church more than it probably deserved, but I did like it. I sat for a while in the absolute silence until it was broken by a sad blackbird in the bushes outside, and then headed for Chappel and Wakes Colne Station for the train home. Simon Knott, October 2012

 

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