Details
LATCHINGDON LOWER BURNHAM ROAD
To 89 NE
(north side)
5/34 Former Church of St.
11.53 Michael
II
Redundant church, converted to a house. Mainly late C14 and early C17, altered
in C18, C19 and C20. Walls of Kentish ragstone rubble and red brick in English
bond, with dressings of limestone, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. Chancel
demolished and walled off c.1856. S wall of Nave and S porch late C14. Most of
N wall rebuilt 1618, W wall refaced in C18. 8 brick buttresses of various
dates, C17 to C19. Most of the N wall is of brick, dated by inscriptions, with
a roll-moulding near the top; it has a contemporary window of 4 round-headed
lights in a square head, the mullions restored, and to W of it a C20 doorway in
a C17 aperture, with 4-centred rear-arch. At the W end of this wall about 2
metres of C14 rubble walling remains. The south wall is mainly late C14,
incorporating a fragment of late C13 construction E of the S doorway. There are
2 windows. The eastern is late C14, of 2 cinquefoiled lights with recessed
spandrels in a square head, with a moulded label; the cill has been raised at
various dates, and the jambs and mullion are plastered. The western, similar
originally, has been blocked and reduced in the C17 to a simple chamfered loop.
Between them is the late C14 S doorway with jambs and 2-centred arch chamfered
in 2 orders. The SW corner is integrated with the buttress, early C17. The W
wall is of random coursed rubble, partly faced with late C18 brick; the W window
is C18, altered in the C20. At the W end of the Nave are 4 posts of a former
belfry. The nave roof is 7-canted, possibly contemporary with the late C14
structure, with 2 later tiebeams with different mouldings. In each pitch are 2
C20 hipped dormers. The S porch has a late C14 outer archway with
hollow-chamfered jambs and 2-centred arch; the upper part is repaired with late
C16 brick. There is a late C14 stoup with hollow-chamfered jambs and 2-centred
head, the bowl partly destroyed. The roof of the porch is late C16, in 2 bays,
of clasped purlin construction with knees to the central collar. There are
inscriptions on stones in the N wall of the Nave (1) 'Mathew Bets and Robert
Pierc mad this wall 1618' and (2) 'Mathew Drakes and Edmund Caitmur church
wardenes when this wall was built 1618 IRIX'. In the Nave is a floor slab to
M-- ANN D--NISO-, 1777. There are indents (1) of man and 2 wives, c.1450, and
(2) of man and wife, c.1440. ( C.R. Couchman et al, Excavations at St. Michael's
Church, Latchingdon, 1976, Essex Archaeology and History, II (third series),
1979. 6-31).
Listing NGR: TQ8877298722