Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin, North Shoebury Road, Southend-on-Sea

This parish church has medieval origins dating from the 13th century, with the chancel constructed around 1230. A south aisle was added to the nave around 1250, and the lower part of the tower was built in the late 13th century. The north wall of the nave was rebuilt in the mid-14th century, and the top of the tower was added or rebuilt in the 14th or 15th century, when the chancel arch was enlarged. The date when the south aisle was removed is unknown. A south porch was added in the 18th century, and the church underwent restoration to designs by W Benton in 1883–85.

The church is constructed of ragstone rubble with some flint and Reigate and other limestone dressings. The porch is timber-framed with flint and stone infill panels. The roofs are tiled.

The plan consists of a nave with a west tower, south porch, and chancel. There is evidence for a former south aisle.

The chancel's north and south walls display three heavily restored 13th-century lancets. In the south wall is a 13th-century pointed doorway with chamfered jambs, and to its west a low side window with a rounded head, probably widened from a lancet. The chancel east window is heavily restored with three uncusped pointed lights.

The nave's north wall has three 14th-century windows. The eastern window is pointed with two trefoiled lights and a quatrefoil in the head. The other two are square-framed with two trefoiled ogee lights. The north door has chamfered jambs and a pointed head. The south wall shows evidence of a blocked three-bay 13th-century aisle. The arcade survives but has been infilled. The eastern bay contains a large 19th-century window in 13th-century style. The arcade itself is mid-13th-century with two chamfered orders on octagonal columns with moulded capitals and bases. The middle bay appears to have been blocked in the 15th century, and the other two bays were blocked and the aisle demolished at an unknown later date, possibly in the 18th century when the south porch was constructed.

The west tower is undivided externally. There is no west door, only a 13th-century lancet in the west wall. Above it is a plain rectangular window. The tower top is capped by a small pyramidal lantern.

The chancel arch is probably 14th-century with two chamfered orders, the outer continuous and the inner on polygonal responds with moulded capitals. A string course runs across the east end of the chancel and along the eastern parts of the north and south chancel walls. The tower arch is of one chamfered order of the late 13th century. The nave roof is 15th-century with two king-post trusses featuring curved braces and traceried spandrels. The north wall plate is embattled and the eastern part of the south wall plate is moulded, sitting on large head stop corbels probably of the 14th century. The chancel has a 19th-century wagon roof with two large tie beams and boarding across the rafters.

Principal fixtures include a 12th-century Purbeck marble font with a square bowl on a shafted stem. There is a damaged 13th or 14th-century piscina in the chancel, alongside a possibly 13th-century cupboard in the north wall and a recess behind the altar, possibly 14th-century. Medieval tiles lie in the chancel floor, with red tiles of the 17th or 18th century in the porch. Royal arms of George I are displayed. The stained glass includes some 14th-century fragments, some in situ, in the nave north windows. The east window dates to 1866 by Powell and Son, comprising largely grisaille quarries with a medallion of the Ascension by E J Poynter. Monuments include a fragment of a late 12th or early 13th-century headstone or coffin lid with a richly ornamented cross head and the letters GRE, and several late 18th and early 19th-century wall tablets inside the church.

Historically, Shoebury (North and South) is mentioned in Domesday Book of 1086, though the church was not recorded. The church had been given to nearby Prittlewell Priory before 1170, though no surviving fabric from this date remains. The late 12th or early 13th-century graveslab fragment may represent the remains of a patron's tomb for the building or rebuilding of that period. North Shoebury was incorporated into Southend-on-Sea in 1934.