Chelmsford Cathedral

Chelmsford has England’s second-smallest cathedral, set in an attractive square tucked away from the bustle of the city centre. Originally the main town parish church, it was elevated to Cathedral status in 1914 when the diocese was created to cater for the burgeoning population of Essex and the east of London. The Cathedral is dedicated to St Mary, St Peter and St Cedd.

History

A church was originally erected on the site around 1200, but the present building is largely the work of the early 15^th century. This church comprised an aisled nave, a chancel with chapels, a west tower and the magnificent south porch. The spire was rebuilt in 1749.

The church has been extensively restored and extended. The nave collapsed in 1800 following excavation in the vaults, and was rebuilt by John Johnson. Frederic Chancellor restored the chancel and south chapel in 1862, and also added the current north transept and outer north aisle in 1873. The east window and chancel clerestory is the work of the famous church architect A W Blomfield, dating from 1877-8. After elevation to a Cathedral, two east bays were added to the chancel to create more space in 1926-8 to designs by A K Nicholson.

The Church

The exterior is a mix of rubble and flint with brick and stone dressings. The style is largely late Perpendicular Gothic: the best features are the tower and the especially fine 15^th century south porch, with its fine patterned flush-work.

The spacious  interior largely reflects the various restorations, especially that of Johnson, whose fabulous Tudor Gothic nave ceiling was painted and gilded in 1961. The 3-bay chancel arcades and tower arch are original 15^th century work. 

The cathedral has many interesting works of art from the 20^th century, and good Victorian and 20^th century glass by Clayton & Bell, and Nicholson. There are some outstanding memorials: the large, brightly coloured wall monument in the north aisle to Thomas (d. 1566) and Avice Mildmay (d. 1557) has a dramatic ogee head, with excellent Jacobean strapwork, and panels depicting the husband and wife with their large family in procession in two panels. Also in the Mildmay chapel, the Earl Fitzwalter (Benjamin Mildmay), (d.1756) is commemorated by a striking monument with a large urn, flanked by cherubs and a pediment supported by Corinthian columns of Siena marble, signed by James Lovell.

The cathedral is open daily for services and visitors, and has a reputation for excellent music.

Chelmsford Cathedral, New Street, Chelmsford CM1 1TY

St George-in-the-East, London

St George in the East is one of six churches in London by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, and its distinctive tower is a prominent landmark in this part of Stepney.

St George's was built as one of the twelve churches commissioned under the Act of Parliament 1711, originally intended to build 50 new churches in London. Known as Queen Anne's Churches, they were intended to cater for the rapidly growing population and to counter competition from non-conformist churches.

For St George's, Hawksmoor designed a conventional neo-classical 'box' with rounded windows and an apsidal east end, but with a distinctive, crenellated lantern tower and four, smaller 'pepper pot' towers on each corner. Gutted by bombs in May 1941, in 1964 a new church was built inside the remaining structure, utilising the north south and east walls but with a new glazed west end, providing an interior courtyard at the west end of the old church.

The graveyard provides a pleasant oasis of green in the this part of London. The church has regular Sunday and weekday services, and hosts local groups, concerts and other arts events.

St George-in-the-East Church, Cannon Street Road, London E1 0BH

St Andrew, West Tarring

West Tarring is surrounded on all sides by the suburban sprawl of modern Worthing, but it much the older and, originally, more important settlement.

The village still retains its attractive original High Street, on which are several old pubs and a lovely 15th century half-timbered house, with a distinctive overhang (now the Parsonage Restaurant, and a grade II* listed building). It also contains the remains of an old palace belonging to the Archbishops of Canterbury (see separate review), now the Parish Hall. The origins of the town date back at least to 941AD, when King Athelstan gave the Manor of Terringes to the Church of Christ at Canterbury.

Domesday mentions two churches, although nothing of these buildings survives. Today, the skyline is dominated by the fine tower and spire of St Andrews, one of only a handful of Grade 1 Listed buildings in Worthing. Reflecting its status as a peculiar of Canterbury, it is a huge church for such a small village. Saint Richard, Bishop of Chichester, took refuge here in 1245-1247, when he was temporarily banished from his See by Henry III.

Although heavily restored by the Victorians, the five-bay Nave and aisles are essentially Early English Gothic from the 13th century, with lancet windows in both aisles and the clerestory. In the south aisle is a fine trefoil-headed piscina, preserved in fine condition by being plastered over in the Reformation rather than destroyed. In the 15th century, the present tower and chancel were built, both with fine Perpendicular windows. The spire  covered in wooden shingles - was added in the 16th century.

But the church's real glory lies in its woodwork: a fine 15th century chancel screen, complete with an impressive (and rather intimidating) row of spikes along the top, and a set of six misericords, with fine carvings underneath, including two bearded heads with flowing locks, and floral compositions. The Victorians continued the panelling around the chancel wall, but the very fine carved Communion Rail - described by Nairn and Pevsner in 'The Buildings of England' as 'perky'  is Jacobean.

Unfortunately, the original font was taken to New Zealand by the principal landowners in the 19th century, and the present one is a copy. However, the interior of nave is decorated by a complex mosaic decorative scheme of 1885, designed by the church architect William Butterfield. On my visit, I was made very welcome by the Rector and Churchwarden, very proud of their historic church.

Outside, the attractive churchyard is full of 18th and 19th century tombs, many of high quality. The oldest and most poignant is a table tomb to one John Parson, dated 1633. A listed monument in its own right, it carries a short but painfully evocative verse:

Young was his age
Virginity his state
Learning his love
Consumption his fate

It's a perfect antidote to some of the more sentimental Victorian epitaphs.

Church Road, West Tarring, Worthing BN13 1HF

St Peter, Petersham

Petersham is quite unexpected: a true village within suburban London, sandwiched between Kingston and Richmond. The quaint and large Georgian brick-built church of St Peter lies just off the main road, a little corner of tranquillity away from the bustle beyond.

It is thought a Saxon chapel existed here in the 8th century, and a church was mentioned in Domesday. The earliest part of the present structure, however, is the chancel, rebuilt in 1266 and now retaining a single simple lancet window. The rest of the church was rebuilt in 1505 and again in the 1700s with the expansion of the transepts, which effectively reorientated the church north-south. The south side was enlarged again in 1840, but has been little altered since.

Inside, the feeling is overwhelmingly of a well-loved Georgian chapel, with high box pews and galleries, a lofty hexagonal pulpit with a spiral staircase, and round-headed windows with pale glass. There are two memorials of note: a fine Jacobean memorial to George Cole (d. 1624) and his wife, and in the churchyard, that of George Vancouver (1757-1798), whose expedition in 1791-5 charted the north west coasts of America and Canada.

On my visit the church had two delightful and informative welcomers.

St Peter, Church Lane, Petersham, Surrey, TW10 7AB

Newcastle Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of St Nicholas was originally built as a parish church and was elevated to cathedral status with the advent of the Diocese of Newcastle in 1882. The largely 14th century building is a distinctive landmark in the city and retains much of its mediaeval fabric.

A church was built on the site soon after the erection of the castle, around 1091. Originally a wooden structure, it was rebuilt in stone towards the end of the 12th century. It was repaired and extended over successive centuries, including the raising of the clerestory above the nave in the 14th century, and the erection of the famous tower with its lantern spire, in 1442. Badly damaged by Scottish invaders in 1640 and 1644, the cathedral underwent heavy restoration in the 19th century under the supervision of Robert J Johnson.

The plan is conventional, with both the nave and chancel having 4 bays of aisles, with transepts and north and south porches. The mediaeval windows are a mixture of Decorated and Perpendicular Gothic. The building has a number of interesting memorials, including a 14th century effigy of a  knight with a shield and a lamb at his feet. On the south chancel wall is a large incised brass from the grave of Roger Thornton (d. 1429) and his wife, said to be the largest mediaeval brass in England. The city's growing mercantile prosperity is reflected in the many memorials from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, notable among which is that to Admiral Lord Collingwood (1748-1810), who assumed command at Trafalgar after the death of Nelson.

The Cathedral has a busy life of worship and music and is open every day of the year.

The Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas, St. Nicholas Square, Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1PF

St Thomas of Canterbury, East Clandon

East Clandon has a homely little church, clearly well cared for by its congregation.

The Victoria County History records the nave as dating back to c. 1100, although the windows were renewed in the Perpendicular style in the 15th century. The chancel dates to around 1220, with the unusual feature of twin lancets at the east end, rather than the usual three. The communion rails date from the late 1600s.

The small aisle is entered through a single arch, although it ends at the west end in a pillar rather than the usual respond, indicating either that there was another bay or that one was intended. The aisle itself was rebuilt in the 1900s, and contains the tomb-chest of Stuart, Lord Rendel (1834-1913), beneath a mock-Jacobean ceiling. Rendel was an industrialist, Liberal politican and an early benefactor to the University of Wales.

In the wooden bell turret, one of the three bells dates from 1500, a happy pre-Reformation survivor.

St Thomas of Canterbury, East Clandon, The Street, East Clandon, Surrey, GU4 7RY

Old St Peter & St Paul, Albury

Albury boasts four churches: the original Saxon church of St Peter and Paul; the Victorian replacement (in the re-sited village) of the same dedication; a 19th century church north of Albury Park, erected by Henry Drummond in 1840 to house the Catholic Apostolic Church (of which he was an enthusiastic convert and advocate); and a modern 'Church in Barn'. The Saxon church, splendidly isolated in Albury Park, is now redundant and in the care of the Church Conservation Trust, although occasional services are still held here.

The north wall and tower base are Saxon, but the nave is mostly Norman work, with a 13th century chancel and south transept, and a large 14th century aisle of 3 bays. The tower is topped by a jolly 18th century cupola with wooden shingles.

Stripped of its pews and furnishings, the interior is atmospheric but bare, save for a late 14th century wall painting of a wonderfully bearded St Christopher and the fantastical, deeply coloured decoration of the south transept, designed by Pugin in 1839, as a setting for Drummond's memorial. Simpler is the brass to John Weston (d. 1440) on the south transept floor.

St Peter and St Paul Old Church, Albury Park, Surrey, GU5 9BB

Albury, Guildford, Surrey, GU5 9BB

Albury, Guildford, Surrey, GU5 9BB