Church of St John the Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

Ford End, Great Waltham. Built in 1870–1 by architect Frederic Chancellor, this is a mid-Victorian Gothic Revival church displaying free adaptation of 13th-century Early English style. The east end was rebuilt in 1892–3 by A Y Nutt but was demolished in 1984–5 due to subsidence problems.

The church is constructed in red brick laid in English bond with limestone dressings and red clay tile roofs, including to the spire.

The plan comprises a nave, chancel, south aisle, south porch, and south-east steeple. The south façade is the principal elevation, dominated by a huge catslide roof covering the nave and south aisle, and the south-east steeple. The east end is now incomplete, with the chancel demolished to just above ground level.

The steeple rises in two stages. The lower storey is tall and unbuttressed, featuring a window on the south face with two cusped lights above which sits a roundel bearing the eagle emblem of the patron saint. A string-course steps up around this window to a gable. At the corners where the first and second stages meet stand life-size figures of the four Evangelists. In the belfry stage, buttressing is suggested by recessing around the belfry windows, which have two cusped lights with a six-foiled circle above, set under stepped brick arches. The spire is square on plan with gently curved sides, each face carrying a lucarne halfway up.

The immense roof creates a very low side wall to the aisle. This is divided into five bays, four containing three equal-height trefoiled windows with shallow buttresses between bays. The second bay from the west is occupied by the porch, of highly original construction. It has a brick plinth with raked timbers rising from it, fitted externally with curved braces supporting the eaves.

The north side, having no aisle, features larger windows of two lights in Geometrical style with cinquefoiled circles in the heads. The west window is also Geometrical with four lights and three six-foiled circles in the tracery. The polygonal apse stands to about one metre high and bears a foundation stone dated 23 May 1870. The chancel arch now stands exposed and has been bricked out.

Internally, walls are of bare red brick. The south side of the nave features a five-bay arcade to the aisle with moulded brick arches and circular piers and capitals of unusual, inventive detail. The arches include an order of bricks with small circular recesses and nicks in the raised portions, with similar but slightly different detail on the capitals. The roof over the nave is canted.

The principal furnishings of interest were carved by Colonel Nevill Tufnell of Langleys (a house in Great Waltham) in 1869, in readiness for the new church. The lectern has four standing figures of the Evangelists round the base, figures echoed on the tower. The semi-circular pulpit, which appears to have lost its base, has figure carvings, while stall fronts are fitted with small square panels bearing various motifs. The circular font has a band of overlapping, fluted semi-circular motifs. The open-backed bench seating has ends with a large, sharply inclined chamfer on the east edge.

Copies of Chancellor's drawings for the church, dated February 1870, hang inside. The site, a former osier bed, proved unfortunate in that it led to subsidence at the east end, necessitating rebuilding in 1892–3. Problems resurfaced in the late 20th century, resulting in extensive underpinning work, though the chancel was ultimately demolished in 1984–5.

Frederic Chancellor (1825–1918) was a successful provincial architect based in Chelmsford, where he began independent practice in 1846. He served as mayor of Chelmsford seven times from 1888.