THE ESSEX CHURCHES SITE

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St Mary, Wix

Click on the 'play' symbol in the second image to see all my photographs of this church as a slide show, then click on any image in the slideshow to see it large in a new page. Alternatively, if you don't have flash enabled, you can go straight to the set for this church on flickr. Where do they think of these village names? It had been a long haul through hilly lanes into a freshening wind from Tendring, but I emerged from beneath the surreally urban A120 viaduct to reach the church. Locked, no keyholder notice. The church is an oddity. On the surface, a simple, ugly Victorian hall church set in a wide graveyard, but there is more to it than that. This was the site of Wix Priory, and the church was rebuilt in 1744 using the arcades of the priory church as its walls (there are no aisles or tower). The appearance today is a result of a 19th Century restoration and a 1930s makeover. Shabby, run down, the brickwork cracking and the plaster peeling, rarely have I seen a church looking so heading for redundancy. But the graveyard is still in busy use, and there is a bell cage, a modern version of the ones at East Bergholt and Wrabness. It was such a depressing spot that I wasn't really bothered about getting inside the church. Instead, I headed ever northwards. Considering I was approaching the Stour estuary it was getting very hilly, not to mention the wind, and high on a ridge overlooking the Stour, with a fine view of the Royal Hospital School at Holbrook on the north bank, is Wrabness, and I headed for it. Simon Knott, April 2013

 

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home - index - latest - e-mail
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Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
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