Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew, Good Easter

This parish church dates primarily to the early 13th century, with significant phases of construction in the 14th and 15th centuries. The building was restored in 1877–78 by S C McMurdie following a lightning strike to the spire, with the chancel restored separately in 1879–81 by Ernest Geldart. After a further fire in 1885, Frederick Chancellor undertook major restoration work including reconstruction of the west wall and roof.

The church is built of flint rubble with some blocks of freestone, particularly in the chancel. The dressings are mainly clunch, and the roofs are tiled, with a timber belfry and spire at the west end.

The building comprises a chancel, a nave with a south aisle, a south porch, and a west belfry built within the nave. The chancel has diagonal eastern buttresses and a 15th-century east window of three traceried lights. A two-light window of late 14th or 15th-century date is set in the north chancel wall, with a 15th-century door, possibly for a former vestry, on the north side. The south chancel wall contains two 14th-century windows and a 14th-century door. The nave has two three-light windows to the east of the door, and a traceried 14th-century two-light window to the west. A late 14th-century north door has been reset in later flintwork. The nave's west window is a single light dating to around 1200, though the surrounding wall has been rebuilt. The south aisle contains three early 14th-century two-light windows in its south wall, with a 14th-century single-light window to the west and a three-light window to the east. The south door of the aisle is also 14th-century. The 15th-century south porch features a four-centred outer opening beneath a square head, with two-light windows having four-centred heads in the side walls. The tall, slender spire rises from a timber belfry with vertical weatherboarding at the west end of the nave.

Internally, on either side of the chancel arch are the remains of tall, moulded arches dating to around 1200, probably originally flanking a narrower chancel arch with side altars. These were cut back when the present mid-13th-century chancel arch was constructed. This arch has two orders: the inner moulded, standing on attached shafts with bell capitals, and the outer chamfered, set on a moulded abacus that continues around onto the east wall of the nave.

The south wall of the chancel contains an elaborate arrangement dating to around 1230–40. From east to west it comprises a piscina, a stepped sedilia set in the dropped window sill, and a five-bay wall arcade above a bench. The arcade's moulded arches are alternately carried down to the bench or set on moulded corbels with Cistercian-style short, cut-away shafts.

The south arcade consists of four bays with alternating round and octagonal shafts. The two eastern arches are 13th-century with two chamfered orders. The third arch is 14th-century and features larger chamfers, probably representing a reworking of an earlier 13th-century arch. The western arch is post-1885, as is the nave roof with arched braces on shafted corbels. The belfry at the west end, carried on four posts with arched braces, also forms part of Chancellor's 1885 restoration.

The church contains a fine mid-13th-century suite of piscina, stepped sedilia, and bench under an arcade in the chancel. The piscina has attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases and features 19th-century tiled decoration by Geldart. The chancel reredos, also by Geldart, displays an embattled cornice, traceried roundels, and painted decoration. Much of Geldart's other painted decoration does not survive or has been overpainted. A second 13th-century piscina stands in the south aisle. A 15th-century stoup is preserved in the porch. The chancel floor is laid with tiles by Maw and Co.

Monuments include a figural brass of Margaret Norrington, died 1610. A late 16th-century helm with a timber crest in the form of a dog's head is kept in the chancel. Traces of early 13th-century wall painting, including black lines and red decoration, survive in the northern recess by the chancel arch. Fragments of 14th and 15th-century glass have been reset in two of the south aisle windows. Another south aisle window dates to 1930 and is by G J Hunt. The east window is by H J Salisbury, 1897.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records a church in the joint entry for Good and High Easter, though it remains unclear to which village it refers. However, the narrowness of the chancel arch implied by the large arches of around 1200 flanking it suggests early origins, possibly pre-Conquest. Good Easter church was granted to St Martin-le-Grand, London shortly after the Norman conquest. Several prebendaries of St Martin's appear to have maintained houses in Good Easter, probably accounting for the unusually large sedilia and bench in the chancel for a church of this size.

The earliest surviving fabric dates to around 1200 and comprises the nave. The chancel was rebuilt around 1230–40, though the partial arches flanking the 13th-century chancel arch indicate that an earlier, narrow chancel arch formerly existed, serving a small chancel now entirely lost. The eastern three bays of the south aisle were added around 1220, with the aisle widened and extended in the early 14th century. The south porch was added in the 15th century, and a north vestry was apparently also constructed on the chancel in the 15th century, though it was later removed. In 1877 the spire was struck by lightning, damaging the west end. The subsequent restoration in 1877–78 by McMurdie was followed by Geldart's chancel restoration of 1879–81. The 1885 fire necessitated major work by Chancellor, including a new tower, spire, west wall, and south-facing aisle roof.

Ernest Geldart (1848–1929), who undertook the chancel restoration, was a prominent architect and priest based at Little Braxted who worked on 57 churches in Essex and others in London and beyond. He was particularly renowned for his tiled decoration, often incorporating biblical texts. At Good Easter, only the IHS monogram tiling in the chancel piscina and the reredos survive from his formerly more extensive decorative scheme.