Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin, Brentwood

A parish church of the 15th and early 16th centuries, restored and extended in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The building sits on Hall Lane in Shenfield. Its walls are cement-rendered, probably of flint rubble with limestone dressings and some red brick in English bond. The roof is covered with machine-made red clay tiles, the belfry is weatherboarded, and the spire is shingled.

The main structure comprises a chancel, nave, west tower extension and south porch dating from the 15th century, with a north aisle added in the late 15th or early 16th century. A north chapel was added in the late 19th century, and a north vestry and north hall in the 20th century.

The chancel is structurally undivided from the nave. Its east window is 19th century except for the 15th-century splays, a chamfered 2-centred rear-arch, and an external moulded label. The north wall contains a 19th-century arch opening to the north chapel, and the south wall has two 19th-century windows and a 19th-century doorway.

The nave features a striking late 15th or early 16th-century timber north arcade of six bays with moulded columns, each having four attached shafts, capitals and bases all cut in the solid, with timber sub-bases. The eastern respond and columns have been partly restored and the timber arches are 19th-century work. The south wall contains three windows, all 19th-century except for their 15th-century chamfered segmental-pointed rear-arches. Further west is a 15th-century south doorway with moulded jambs, a 4-centred arch, and a label with voluted stops.

Inside, aligned with the first column of the north arcade stands a moulded and crenellated rood-beam. Above it, the barrel-vault roof is divided by two spiral-carved arch braces forming a semicircular arch together. Aligned with the fifth column is a chamfered tie-beam, probably 19th-century, supporting a 15th-century cross-quadrate crownpost with four-way arched rising braces. The remainder of the visible roof is 19th-century.

The north aisle contains six 19th-century windows in its north wall. Between the two westernmost windows is a section of early 16th-century red brick wall with a contemporary buttress, extended in the 19th century. Within this wall is an early 16th-century red brick north doorway set in a slightly projecting section crenellated at the top. The doorway has moulded jambs and a 4-centred arch beneath a square moulded label. The door itself consists of V-edged and grooved vertical boards nailed to battens, blocked and concealed on the inside. The west wall contains a 19th-century doorway to the former vestry, now extended as a hall. The visible roof is 19th-century.

The west tower extension is square, matching the nave span, with walls carried up approximately one metre above those of the nave. Its west wall contains a 15th-century window of three cinquefoiled lights in a segmental head with a moulded label; each light has an early wrought-iron grill. The extension encloses the timber-frame of the belfry. This frame comprises four posts on each side, from which spring hollow-chamfered arched braces forming 4-centred arches supporting four chamfered tie-beams. All posts have hollow-chamfered attached shafts aligning with the braces, cut in the solid; the corner posts are additionally hollow-chamfered and expand variously at their feet, with the southeast post's expanded foot now mutilated. The sills have been replaced by concrete plinths. Between the second and third posts on each side is a girt on heavy arched braces, above which are saltire braces halved at the crossings. Between other post pairs at each side are short horizontal ties, mutilated in places by the insertion of steel stanchions. Above each of the eight arched braces from the main posts is an original spandrel-post. Ogee-curved braces of square section rise from the east and west spandrel-posts, passing through the spandrels of the inner arches and the 19th-century second-stage floor.

The 15th-century south porch is arranged in two bays. The walls, possibly originally timber-framed, are now cement-rendered masonry to half-height, with 19th-century mullions and cinquefoiled lights above. The wallplates and richly moulded tenoned cornices are original except for minor repairs at the north ends, chamfered and stopped below for three posts and six mullions on each side. The three hollow-moulded tie-beams are original, with a 19th-century planted moulding on the outer tie-beam. The two inner tie-beams have original chamfered arched braces and short cross-quadrate crownposts, with four rising braces on the middle post and three on the inner post; one original brace remains on the renewed outer crownpost. The collar-purlin, rafters and sprockets are substantially original. All rafters show gauging holes facing south.

The church contains numerous fittings and monuments of note. On the east wall of the chancel is a 15th-century stone bracket, semi-octagonal and moulded, carved with foliage and two defaced shields; it has been moved from the north wall since earlier recording. The font has an octagonal bowl moulded and carved with a quatrefoil in each face, with three heads and five flowers in the centres, and a 20th-century base and stem. A 19th-century octagonal pulpit stands on an earlier stone base with three stone steps and moulded coping. The south porch contains an indent for a brass, now defaced.

In the west tower extension are two important monuments. The first, against the west wall, is to Elizabeth, wife of Timothy Robinson, who died in 1652. It is a panelled and moulded limestone altar-tomb with a skull at one end. The top is of black marble and bears an alabaster effigy of a woman in a shroud reclining on a tasselled cushion, holding a skull in her right hand while cradling an infant in a christening gown in her left arm. Two shields of arms appear on the wall above, though the front inscription is now obstructed by a pew. The second monument, against the south wall, is a limestone tablet or floor-slab to John Ashurst, who died in 1676, and Eleanor his fourth wife, who died in 1677, with a shield of arms.

The north wall of the north aisle bears a limestone tablet to Elizabeth, wife of Charles White, who died in 1735, their daughter Elizabeth Ann and Elizabeth, and Charles White, who died in 1753. This tablet has black marble Ionic columns and a scrolled pediment with a shield of arms. The south wall of the nave carries a white marble tablet to Mary, widow of John Gurdon, who died in 1771, and their daughter Mary, who died in 1792, with an oval raised border. The northwest lobby contains limestone tablets to Maria, wife of RM Robinson, who died in 1821, and to the Reverend Philip Salter, who died in 1829, and his wife Jane, who died in 1830.

Painted arms of Charles I on canvas in a moulded wooden frame hang on the north wall of the north aisle, while three hatchments are displayed on the north and west walls. The west extension contains twelve early 17th-century pews with panelled backs and ends and moulded rails.