Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Stondon Massey

This church dates from around 1100, with significant work in the late 14th century and late 19th century alterations. It is constructed of flint, rubble and quartzite with tile courses. The old walls are rendered except for the west end, where the original walling remains visible. Some tiles are of post-medieval type, but characteristic Roman tegulae are found throughout, particularly in the lower courses. A late 19th-century north vestry, organ chamber and chapel were added to the northeast side, built in split flint with limestone dressings. The roof is covered in peg tiles.

The church displays important Norman features including a simple south doorway with round head and voussoirs, plain jambs and chamfered imposts. The splays contain draw bar holes (indicating a door hung from the west jamb) with timber lining and tiles within the tufa courses. Norman windows survive in the north wall of the nave (unrestored) and in the chancel, constructed of tufa with narrow internal splays.

The plan is simply two-celled, with the chancel arch removed by the 15th century, though a reduction in width at the chancel and nave junction is evident. The south elevation features a timber-framed porch dated 1849–51, executed in late medieval style with an inner post, tie-beam and wall plates that may be old. A late 14th-century three-light window with cinquefoiled ogee lights and tracery in a square head is present, with Upper Greensand dressings, partly restored. The chancel has a similar late 14th-century two-light window and a 19th-century doorway.

On the north side stands a projecting late 19th-century chapel, organ chamber and vestry with angle buttresses. The windows are lancets with trefoiled heads and leaded panes with stained glass. The west elevation contains three lights; the north elevation has a blind arch in 13th-century style with a two-leaf boarded door and above it a quatrefoil light in a roundel set high in the gable, with a trefoiled oculus. The east elevation features a single-light lancet dated 1849–51. The organ chamber and vestry have a two-light window on the north elevation and a two-light window on the east elevation of the vestry, both with 19th-century boarded doors.

The west wall of the nave contains a 15th-century window of two cinquefoiled lights in a four-centred head with moulded label, partly restored. In the gable is a lancet window, possibly 19th-century, with three simple oculi above, uncovered in 1850. The belfry stage at the west end is weatherboarded with louvred vents and rises to a small octagonal spire on a pyramidal roof covered with wooden shingles. The east wall of the chancel displays a late 19th-century east window of early perpendicular style with three lights and cinquefoil heads.

The original east end of the chancel is said to have been an apse, a theory supported by a vertical crack in the rendering of the south wall and additional timber cornice lengths added to the squared-off end within the chancel. When rendering was repaired on the south side, additional brickwork of possibly Elizabethan date was observed. The earliest work visible in the nave west wall appears Saxo-Norman. The rubble courses, where undisturbed, are pitched, as are the tiles, which occur in two single rows at the level of the sill and arch springing of the west window. In the gable is a band of three rows of pitched tiles set at half height. At tie-beam level an elaborate tile pattern crosses the entire wall, comprising a lower double course with an upper course, between which tiles are set to create a series of equilateral triangles. Roman tegula tiles occur throughout this work, though later examples have been added. Together with the oculi and the use of tufa for door and window dressings, these features indicate very early dating for the building.

Interior

The west end contains an early 15th-century belfry frame of Essex type with a lower table frame and belfry rising from the centre. Curved arched braces rise to the tie-beams, and curved shore braces reach to the belfry stage, with curved X-bracing of the stage frame. The eastern principal lower posts have inward-facing chamfered fillets; the western posts had fillets that have since been cut away. The east tie-beam features a double hollow chamfer moulding. The nave's terminal post of the crown post roof sits on the belfry tower, with a contemporaneous east tie-beam. The roof has two bays with a central four-way braced crown post of square section with square fillets on each face, no capital, and a simple block base with rounded top. Lateral braces reach to the soulaces, the collar purlin is visible, but the remainder is obscured by plaster ceilings inserted in 1735. An early 15th-century timber cornice, moulded with a roll in a hollow chamfer, runs around the nave and chancel walls.

Monuments and Fittings

The church contains three bells. The first was cast by Robert Mot in 1588; the second by John Bird in the early 15th century, inscribed 'Johannes Cristi Care Dignare Pro Nobis Orare'. A pulpit and reading desk are built as one unit, dated 1630. The pulpit is octagonal and panelled with arabesque and pendant decoration. The reading desk is panelled with carved pyramids, cabochons, pendants, sheaves of corn and grapes.

A chancel screen of approximately ten bays, dating to around 1500, features a central doorway with four-centred arch, side lights with traceried heads and moulded muntins. The lower section has been completely replaced; the upper part shows some restoration. A brass in the chancel commemorates John Carre, dated 1570, and displays figures of a man in civilian costume and two wives, three shields and a merchant's mark, with indents of groups of children in a stone slab of Purbeck marble. Two other brass fragments, now set in mahogany panels attached to the chancel wall, commemorate Rainold Holingworth (1573) with figures of a man in armour with wife and shields, and a palimpsest featuring a male figure with part of a Flemish canopy and an achievement of arms of Cleves quartering Mark with a quartered scutcheon of Burgundy and Flanders overall. A second palimpsest shows a lady's figure with a Flemish canopy and figures of St Bartholomew and St Andrew.

The font is octagonal with sides panelled in quatrefoils enclosing foliage bosses, with a moulded base of 15th-century date and some restoration in plaster. A chapel was erected by Marianne, wife of Philip Herman Meyer of Stondon Place, in his memory in 1870. William Byrd, the renowned Elizabethan-Jacobean musician and recusant who lived at Stondon Place, was buried in the church in 1623. A wall plaque in Jacobean style was erected in 1923 to commemorate him.