The Church of Saint Anne and Saint Laurence, Elmstead, Essex: An Account of the Post-Reformation Fittings and Liturgical Arrangements
Author(s): Linda Monckton
The parish of Saint Anne and Saint Laurence at Elmstead is served by a small rural church dating from the 12th to the 14th centuries. The history of the parish’s liturgical re-orderings is evident in the unusual survivals of fixtures and decorative schemes from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The re-orderings commence with a late 17th-century campaign that established the painted texts and the Laudian altar rail and communion table. In the 18th century, the internal character of the nave was formed through the erection of a three-storey pulpit and new ceiling. From c.1820 a further re-ordering scheme consolidated the Georgian interior with the addition of a complete set of box pews in the nave and chancel, the repainting of the texts and the construction of a gallery. The fittings at Elmstead constitute an unusual and significant survival, illustrative both of a series of specific re-ordering campaigns and of the character of re-ordering within a rural parish church in the post-Reformation period. The over-riding impression at Elmstead (the removal of the chancel pews notwithstanding) is of a thoughtfully executed Georgian interior, developed with care over the 18th and early 19th centuries, and the pews are an essential aspect of this character.
- Report Number:
- 70/2006
- Series:
- Research Department Reports
- Pages:
- 49
- Keywords:
- Building Recording Post Medieval
