Church of St John the Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist, Little Leighs

The nave was built in the early 12th century, and the chancel was added or rebuilt in the 13th century. The church was restored in 1895 by A Y Nutt, who rebuilt the east wall and the south porch and added the north vestry.

The building is constructed of flint rubble, coursed in the 12th-century work and uncoursed in the 13th-century work, with limestone and clunch dressings. It has tiled roofs and a shingled spirelet. The west belfry is weather boarded.

The plan comprises an unaisled nave and chancel in one, with a south porch, north vestry, and small west spirelet.

The chancel east wall was rebuilt in the 19th century and contains a three-light Decorated style window. The division between chancel and nave is defined externally on the north and south walls by small offset buttresses. The north wall of the chancel has a narrow two-light Decorated window and a small projection with brick quoins for a tomb recess visible from inside. The chancel south wall features a priest's door with a 13th-century chamfered opening and hoodmould, flanked by a two-light Decorated window towards the east end and a smaller 13th-century single light with a hood mould to the west. The north wall of the nave has a 14th-century window towards its east end and a small 12th-century round-headed light towards the west end. Between these is a 13th-century north door with one chamfered order. The south wall of the nave has a 14th-century window towards the east end and a small early 12th-century light immediately to the west of the south porch. The 13th-century south door has one heavily moulded order on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases and an outer hood mould. The west window is a single tall 13th-century light with a hood mould, heavily restored in the 19th century. The 19th-century south porch is timber and stands on dwarf stone walls with open arcades to the sides and arched braces to the outer opening. The timber bell turret and spire were rebuilt in the 19th century, with weather boarded sides, louvered two-light openings in each face, and a splay-footed shingled spire.

The interior shows no division between nave and chancel, but they have different roofs with an arched truss between them. The nave has a trussed rafter roof, probably of the 14th century, with a tie beam with queen posts under the belfry. The chancel has a boarded wagon roof with two old tie beams. The entrance for the former rood loft stair is preserved in the western splay of the chancel north-west window, now blocked except for the lowest steps. To the east in the north chancel wall is a superb 14th-century tomb recess, with a 13th-century recess to its east. In the south wall the sill of the 13th-century window is carried down to form a low-side window opening, now blocked, and there is a contemporary chamfered recess in the splay. The splays of the 12th-century windows in the nave are brick, and the splays of an additional blocked 12th-century window are visible in the south nave wall.

The principal fixtures include a 13th-century octagonal font with panelled and traceried sides, the carving added in the 14th century, standing on eight shafts with alternate shafts standing on carved beasts. Some early 16th-century benches with reeded panelling on the ends survive in the nave. 16th and 17th-century linenfold panelling was made up into new furnishings in 1895, including the polygonal pulpit and panelling in the vestry. The thin Decorated-style screen is also 1895, as is the stone reredos with diaper panelling and heavy cornice. The south door is 13th-century and has hinges with foliate ends. There is good 19th and 20th-century stained glass, including the east and west windows of 1895, probably by Ion Pierce, and the nave north window by G E R Smith of 1951.

The chancel contains a superb early 14th-century tomb of an unknown cleric in the Court Style, retaining traces of original paint. The arch of the recess has a cusped ogee opening with spandrels heavily carved with foliage and faces. The extrados of the arch has foliage carving and terminates in a foliate pinnacle, flanked by tall pinnacles. The tomb chest is plain, with an oak effigy of a priest in mass vestments, his feet resting on two animals and defaced angels supporting his head. Herman Olmius, died 1726, is commemorated by a wall tablet with broken pediment, drapery and cherub's head. George Welstead, died 1796, is commemorated by a female figure leaning on an urn. There is also a single hatchment.

Great and Little Leighs are mentioned as a single estate in the Domesday Book of 1086, but neither church is recorded at that time, although this does not necessarily mean a church did not exist. The early 12th-century nave provides the earliest evidence for a church in Little Leighs. It is likely that the priest commemorated in the chancel was one of the rectors in the 14th century, and Herman Olmius, commemorated in the nave, was a London merchant of Dutch descent who owned several estates in the area and was patron of the living of Little Leighs. The 1895 restoration was paid for by Reverend H E Hulton, Vicar of Great Waltham and Rural Dean of Chelmsford. The architect, Alfred Young Nutt (1847–1924), was Surveyor to the Dean and Canons of St George's, Windsor and Clerk of Works at Windsor Castle. He also had a private architectural practice and worked extensively on churches in Essex and elsewhere.