Church Of St Leonard

Church of St Leonard

A parish church on the south side of High Street, Southminster, with substantial medieval fabric spanning from the 12th to 15th centuries, later altered and repaired.

The nave displays three distinct heights of building: 12th-century work in septaria, rubble and Roman brick; a 15th-century flint clerestory; and 19th-century gault brick above. The west tower base is 12th-century septaria and rubble, raised in the 15th century with repairs of red brick and flint flushwork gables. The structure suffered bomb damage in 1940 and now has 20th-century concrete pantiles.

The chancel, sanctuary, north and south transepts are rendered brick, built for Dr Alexander Scott, a former naval officer, creating a symmetrical composition. The chancel features five angled gables and two-light ogee windows with moulded two-centre arched heads and labels to the second and fourth angles. Corner turrets with slanting roofs flank left and right. The transepts are gabled to north and south with three-stage angle buttresses. They contain four cinquefoil lights with reticulated tracery over, moulded two-centre arched heads and labels. A doorway to the west wall of the north transept has a sunk chamfered segmental pointed arch with sunk spandrels, flat head and label. A small plastered lean-to extension adjoins the east wall of the south transept.

The nave contains two north-wall 15th-century clerestory windows of three trefoiled lights under square heads. An east window has two cinquefoil lights with tracery over under a square head and label. A 15th-century north doorway has moulded jambs and a reset two-centre arched head with label and headstops. Four similar clerestory windows to the south wall are partly restored. The south wall also has three windows: those to east and west have two cinquefoil lights with tracery over under square heads and labels. Between the western and central windows, part of a large red brick 12th-century round-headed arch is visible. The central 15th-century window has two cinquefoil lights with tracery over under a four-centre arched head and label. West of this is an early 12th-century doorway with plain jambs, imposts and round head. A 19th-century sundial and medieval scratch dial are adjacent to the east of the doorway. To the north-west of the nave is a stair turret with two small loop lights and a lean-to roof.

The west tower has three stages, with only the upper stage visible externally. It features a 15th-century moulded cornice with carved ball flowers and flint flushwork to shallow north and south gables. Iron ties secure the east and west walls. Buttresses to the south-west angle (five stage) and north-west angle (two stage) provide structural support. The west door, restored in the 15th century, has double-chamfered jambs, a two-centre arched head and label over. A 19th-century vertically boarded door with strap hinges is present, with a 15th-century restored window above of two cinquefoil lights under a square head with label. A clock sits over the north face of the stair turret. The second stage of the south face has a much-eroded 15th-century window with trefoil head. The bell chamber has a band and partly-restored 15th-century windows of two trefoiled lights under square heads on each face.

The 15th-century two-storey north porch is crenellated with a moulded band and moulded plinth. Three-stage buttresses flank left and right. Each return wall has two windows of two cinquefoil lights with moulded labels: those to the ground floor have segmental arches, while the first-floor windows have square heads. A gargoyle appears on the left return. The outer archway has two moulded orders, the inner resting on shafts with moulded capitals and bases, and a moulded label with headstops. Above the archway are three niches, each with buttressed jambs, cusped, crocketted and finialed canopies and moulded cills carved with three heads, angels or shields. The 15th-century north doorway has moulded jambs, a two-centre arched head and label. A stoup to the left of this door has cusping, an ogee head and round drain.

Interior

The north porch ground floor has a vaulted stone ceiling springing from angle shafts with moulded and crenellated capitals and moulded bases. Moulded ribs have carved bosses depicting the Trinity, half-angels and foliate motifs, some eroded. The first floor, with a timber cambered roof, is approached by stone stairs with a central newel from a small 15th-century doorway with hollow-chamfered jambs and two-centre head in the north wall of the nave. A 15th-century door of overlapping battens with strap hinges provides entrance, with a similar entrance doorway to the first-floor room.

The nave, chancel, north and south transepts and transept crossing have vaulted ceilings, plastered and ribbed with bosses. Twentieth-century plastic tiled floors cover throughout.

The chancel features a 19th-century carved stone reredos with double left and right panels, crocketted and pinnacled pilasters, figures of Saints Cedd and Alban to left and right of a central cusped and illuminated panel with a pointed head over. Illuminations of the twelve Apostles surround a central red marble crucifix with carved stone symbols of the Crucifixion to the soffit. Incorporated stone sedilia have thirteen cusped and crenellated bays, one to the right with a marble shelf. A 20th-century wrought iron posts and moulded wood altar rail are present. Traceried timber panelling lines the choir and organ. The front has 15th-century poppy-head choir stalls, with the rest being 19th-century copies. A moulded two-centre head chancel arch separates the spaces. In the transept vestries are a chest, table, glass-fronted cupboard, looking glass and iron box fireplace known as the Nelson Relics, reputed to have been brought from HMS Victory by Dr Alexander Scott.

The nave contains a 19th-century brass eagle lectern and a 19th-century carved timber octagonal pulpit with two-light tracery to panels and saints at the angles. Nineteenth and 20th-century stained glass and glass-fragment margins and quarries fill the ground-floor windows, while the clerestory has clear glass. A memorial board relating to the 1819 enlargement is present. Two consecration crosses appear on the splay of the south doorway: the upper probably 12th-century, the lower probably 15th-century, dating to when the church was extended by Vytoner, Abbot of St Osyth, Essex. The font is 15th-century, octagonal with a moulded edge, quatrefoils with flower centres to panels, a stem with quatrefoil and cinquefoil-headed panels, and a quatrefoiled base with square flowers. A 19th-century carved timber cover crowns it. The 15th-century two-centred west tower arch has three chamfered orders with a blocked round-headed arch over. High on the east wall is a probably 12th-century carved stone head. The south wall has a 12th-century blocked window. The north wall contains a chamfered two-centre arched doorway.