Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Buttsbury

This very small medieval church stands isolated near Ingatestone Road. It consists of a chancel, a short two-bay nave with north and south aisles (which are unusually wider than they are long), a west tower, and a south porch. The building displays a remarkable architectural palimpsest spanning from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the twentieth century.

The church is constructed of mixed materials that reflect its complex building history. The west tower is red brick, dating to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The aisles are largely flint rubble with stone dressings and brick buttresses. The chancel is rendered, though it probably contains flint rubble beneath. The south porch and the upper part of the tower are weatherboarded. Red tiled roofs cover the building throughout.

The architectural history begins with possible Anglo-Saxon origins. The approximately 1½-square plan of the nave, considered without the aisles, may suggest origins of this date, and the ornamental metalwork on the north door, dated by stylistic analysis to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, provides supporting evidence. The chancel and aisles appear to originate in the fourteenth century, and the church underwent significant remodelling in the fifteenth century when the present nave and chancel arcades were constructed and both roofs were rebuilt.

The exterior preserves an unusual quantity of late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century churchwardens' Gothic work in its original unrestored state. The chancel, though rendered, retains its small brick plinth and displays its original character on the north and south sides with late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century windows featuring segmental heads, high transoms, and square leaded panes. The east window is a later replacement, installed in 1876 in the Perpendicular style. The north and south aisles preserve large decorated windows of the fourteenth century. The north and south doors are early fourteenth-century work with two chamfered orders; the north door retains its hood mould. It is possible that these elements were reset during the fifteenth-century remodelling.

Both aisles were substantially remodelled and partly rebuilt in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Their north and south windows date to this period and match the style of those in the chancel. The west walls of the aisles were entirely rebuilt in brick and appear to form a single build with the tower. Tall brick buttresses reinforce the northwest and southwest corners of the nave, with additional brick buttresses at the northeast and southeast corners of the aisles. The weatherboarded south porch likely dates from this same period of late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century work.

The west tower, constructed of red brick in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, features a large three-light west window with simple Y-tracery. The tower displays a series of offsets defined by string courses as it rises, and the belfry stage is weatherboarded with a pyramidal roof and ball finial. A small brick chamber in the southwest corner between tower and south aisle is a later addition.

The interior is plastered and painted. The two-bay north and south nave arcades date to the fifteenth century and feature chamfered inner orders on polygonal shafts with moulded capitals and continuous outer orders. The tower arch, which dates to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, is plain with a segmental head. There is no chancel arch.

The roofs are exceptional survivals of fifteenth-century work. The king-post roof in the chancel is of this date. The nave roof, of similar design and probably similar date, is set higher than the chancel roof. It was formerly ceiled, and during removal of this ceiling in 1977, a fragment of a Doom painting was discovered. The aisles have lean-to roofs, also formerly ceiled. The south aisle roof is probably largely medieval, while the north aisle roof dates to the twentieth century.

The principal fixtures include a very plain damaged piscina in the chancel with a pointed head and chamfered opening. The chancel incorporates encaustic tiles and two seventeenth-century floor slabs.

The north and south nave doors are old. The north door is of exceptional importance, featuring wide battens and ornamental hinges and straps that are dated to the eleventh century with additions of the twelfth century, and it retains a small iron grill. The south door has four wide battens and an iron grill.

A very fine and well-preserved fragment of a late medieval Doom painting was discovered behind the nave ceiling in 1977 and subsequently conserved. The colours remain very fresh. Visible elements include the top of Christ's head and halo, and the heads of angels carrying the nail and the spear from the Instruments of the Passion.

An unusual wooden war memorial for the First World War stands in the church, featuring a carved ogee top and an inscription recording that it was "executed and erected by a parishioner" in 1920.

The church is documented in the Domesday Book of 1086, though the church itself is not mentioned, a not uncommon omission. The church was held by the nuns of St Leonard's Barking and, despite its small size, was sufficiently important to serve a very large parish with at least one dependent chapel at Stock (All Saints Church). When the parish was united with Ingatestone in 1783, this reorganisation may have prompted the Georgian rebuilding of the west end of the church, including the tower and the west ends of the aisles in brick. Restoration work was undertaken in 1876 when the east window was installed. By the early twentieth century the church was in poor condition; restoration followed in 1923 when the aisle east windows were discovered under blocking and restored, and again in 1949 following Second World War damage. Further restoration occurred in 1977 when the nave roof was uncovered. In 2004 the church became part of a unified benefice with Margaretting and Mountnessing.