Church Of St Katherine

Church of St Katherine, Knockholt

This small parish church stands on the northwest side of Knockholt Main Road. The building comprises a nave and chancel dating to the early 12th century, a south tower of uncertain medieval date, a north aisle added in 1881, a south tower porch, and a northeast vestry.

The body of the church is rendered externally, while the tower is constructed of flint rubble with red brick dressings. The north aisle is built of coursed stone and flint rubble with stone dressings. The roofs are tiled and slated.

The church presents a plain, low exterior that conceals its considerable historical interest. The 12th-century nave and chancel are rendered and were refenestrated in the early 19th century. The north wall displays three lancet windows, the east wall has a group of three lancets and a three-light window at the west end. The 12th-century origin remains evident in a pair of 12th-century windows flanking the east window. The south tower porch, of uncertain medieval date, was originally very short. Around 1840 it was raised and given a south door in Perpendicular style; the tower buttresses and upper windows also date from this period. The north aisle of 1881 has pairs of uncusped Tudor-style windows and a shouldered northwest door. Squared stone masonry in the lower part of the aisle wall is probably reused and may be 12th-century. The low northeast vestry also dates to 1881.

The interior is plastered and painted throughout. There is no chancel arch. The east wall features two large, plain early 12th-century blind arches, above which the 12th-century windows are deeply splayed. The four-bay north arcade of 1881 is designed in 13th-century style with polygonal piers and moulded capitals.

The tower retains part of its pre-Reformation bell frame, possibly 15th or early 16th century, which was reset in 1840 when the tower was altered. The nave and chancel roof dates to the early 19th century and is low-pitched and boarded with moulded ribs. The 19th-century north aisle roof is of lean-to design, with struts extending from corbels on the north side of the arcade to the purlins, and is similarly boarded.

Principal fixtures include a late 19th or early 20th-century reredos with simple but elegant blind tracery; a 19th-century polygonal stone font; a 19th-century timber drum pulpit with blind tracery panels on a wineglass stem; and very plain 19th-century nave benches, ramped up the west end of the church.

The church is early 12th-century in origin. Although small, it displays considerable architectural ambition, evidenced by the blind arches on the east wall that must originally have flanked a niche for an altar. The tower was added at an uncertain medieval date, but its massive form and the fact that in the early 19th century before alterations it appears not to have had a door suggest it may also date to the 12th or early 13th century. Before tower renovation in the early 19th century, the church also had a south porch of uncertain date. The early fabric presents a puzzle, as documentary evidence suggests the church was founded in the mid-13th century. However, since this document dates to around 1350 and is therefore a later retelling of the foundation, its dating may be unreliable.

The tower originally had a spire of unknown date, which had blown or fallen down by the late 18th century and was replaced by a low pyramidal cap barely rising above the church roof. Early watercolours from this period show the roof was steeply pitched, with small 12th-century lancets in the south wall, a small south porch, and two possibly 12th-century windows in the west wall.

The church was reseated in 1822-3, and the roof was rebuilt in the late 1830s to designs by Samuel Green. The tower was probably also altered at this time to raise it and provide it with a south door, with windows changed accordingly. Repeated proposals to enlarge the church in the 1870s by various architects finally came to fruition in 1881, when work was carried out to designs by A. R. Stenning (1846-1928), who also reseated and refurnished the church and added the vestry. The parish was united with St Margaret's, Halstead, in 1983.