Church of St. Mary the Virgin

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Little Dunmow

A Grade I parish church built as the Lady Chapel in the 14th century, originally part of the Augustinian Priory of St. Mary the Virgin founded in 1106 by Geoffrey Baynard. It is the only structure of the priory that survives above ground; the rest was demolished following the Dissolution in 1536. During 19th-century renovations, a turret was constructed to the north west on the base of a former tower pier. A vestry was added to the north wall, and the roof was renewed with scissor bracing, ashlar pieces, and seven plain tie beams, clad with grey slate tiles.

The external walls are built of flint rubble and brick with limestone and clunch dressings. Three stage buttresses project from the east, north east, and south east walls, with a diagonal buttress to the south west. The west wall has a 19th-century doorway in a moulded stone surround and 19th-century windows. The north wall contains four 19th-century lancet windows; east of the vestry is a blocked 13th-century shafted window with shaft rings, below which runs an area of blank intersecting arcading. The east window is a 19th-century insertion of five lights. The south wall displays four fine 14th-century windows: the eastern and third windows have four cinquefoiled sub-cusped lights with flowing tracery in four-centred heads, whilst the second and fourth have three cinquefoiled sub-cusped lights with leaf and vertical tracery in two-centred heads. To the west is a 16th-century light with a three-centred head in a square-headed panel.

Inside, the west wall features a moulded string course and three panels with trefoiled ogee heads, crocketed and finial labels with carved stops. The east end of the north wall has a splayed recess with a foiled head. The east window retains original splays which extend to the floor, with attached shafts, moulded capitals, and bases; four niches in the splay hollows are furnished with gabled, crocketed, and pinnacled canopies dating to around 1370.

The reredos, dating to approximately 1370, comprises five niches with three-sided ornamented canopies. Two pairs of panels flanking the niches have trefoiled ogee heads and carved spandrels. Above sits a rectangular panel at the level of the embattled window cill. A carved head adjoins the north splay. Either side of the upper window are two cinquefoil-headed panels. At the level of the cills of the four south windows, two springing points of the window heads are marked by moulded string courses enriched with small carvings of animals, foliage, and figures. Between the windows at the east end are panels in two tiers with cinquefoil or trefoil heads, some with crocketed and finial labels. Between the first and second window in the second tier is a shallow niche with a moulded pedestal. Additional panels appear above the string course, arranged singly or in pairs. At the west end of the wall is a blocked two-centred arch with shafted jambs, moulded capitals, and bases of Purbeck marble.

The south arcade dates to around 1190 and comprises five bays. The two centre arches have three moulded orders with remains of moulded labels. The piers on the north side are formed of four headed shafts divided by plain circular shafts, all with moulded and foliated capitals under a common circular abacus. The moulded beams feature spur ornaments and rest on a common octagonal and chamfered plinth with a square chamfered sub-plinth.

The interior contains significant fittings. At floor level on the north wall is a panel of approximately 31 medieval tiles. The Dunmow Flitch Chair is fashioned from a 13th-century stall with later work and moulded panels. A tomb of Walter Fitzwalter and his wife, dating to 1432–1464, displays two fine alabaster effigies: the man is depicted in plate armour with a mail standard and skirt, a collar of S.S. with a "truth" pendant, hip belt, and head resting on a helm with a headless lion at the missing feet; the woman wears a sideless dress, hip belt, and corded cloak with a horned headdress, attended by angels at her head and dogs at her feet. A second alabaster tomb contains an effigy of a woman in a sideless gown and corded cloak with a collar of S.S., also attended by angels and dogs. A monument to Sir James Halley, dated 1753 and designed by Thomas Adye, takes the form of an obelisk with a seated female figure holding a portrait medallion. A floor slab commemorates John Wylde, infant son of Sir William Wilde, dated 1665. A 14th-century piscina in the wall has a moulded trefoiled head with label, finial, and dog-tooth ornament; shafted jambs with moulded bases and foliated capitals support a spirally fluted basin with a carved front resting on a semi-octagonal shaft with moulded base and capital, flanked by two pointed and foiled arches. The 19th or early 20th-century pulpit incorporates seven 15th-century Flemish traceried panels.