St Mary the Virgin Church is a Church of England parish church in the town of Corringham, Essex, England. Dating from the 11th century, it is a Grade I listed building.[1]
The church has a west tower with a pyramidal roof, a nave and north aisle, and a chancel with a north chapel. It is built of ragstone rubble and flint, with dressings of Reigate stone and limestone.
Domesday Book of 1086 does not record a church or priest. At that time, landholders in the area included the bishop of London, and bishop Odo of Bayeux.[2]
The tower is from the late 11th century, as evidenced by the bell-openings and blind arcading, and inside, the arch with a single order of decoration on each side. Nikolaus Pevsner calls it "one of the most important Early Norman monuments in the county".[3] At the apex of the arch on the east side is a small carving of a human head.[3] The RCME considered the south walls of the chancel and nave to be from earlier in the 11th century, perhaps pre-Conquest, with the tower standing on the foundations of the earlier west wall of the nave.[4]
The north chapel and north aisle were added in the 14th century, and in the same century the chancel was extended eastward and made higher.[3] 19th-century restoration included work in 1843 by George Gilbert Scott, and the south porch and the vestry are also from that century.[1]
The three bells are from 1580, 1629 and 1617.[5]
Today the parish is part of the benefice of Corringham and Fobbing.[6]
References
edit- ^ a b Historic England. "Church of St Mary (1337083)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ Corringham in the Domesday Book
- ^ a b c "St Mary, Corringham, Essex". The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. King's College London. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
- ^ Corringham. London: HMSO. 1923. pp. 25–27 – via British History Online.
- ^ "Corringham, Essex, S Mary V". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
- ^ "Corringham: St Mary the Virgin". A Church Near You. The Archbishops' Council. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
External links
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Media related to Saint Mary Church (Corringham, Essex) at Wikimedia Commons