St Edmund King & Martyr, Mersea Island
St Edmund King & Martyr, Mersea Island
St Edmund King and Martyr is a Grade I parish church on Church Lane, East Mersea, on Mersea Island, Essex, in the Diocese of Chelmsford.
- Location
- Mersea Island, Essex
- Country
- England
- County
- Essex
- City / town
- Mersea Island
- Address
- Church Lane, Mersea Island, Essex, CO5 8TJ
- Postcode
- CO5 8TJ
- Built
- 12th or 13th century origin; 14th-century nave, chancel and tower; 15th-century north aisle
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Edmund
- Diocese
- Chelmsford
- Parish
- East Mersea St Edmund
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Decorated and Perpendicular
- Materials
- Coursed rubble and flint with flushwork; pegtiled roofs; oak south porch on red-brick walls
- Grid reference
- TM 050 141
- Opening hours
- Sorry, there are no regular opening times for this church.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets in church
Overview
Historic England records a church of twelfth- or thirteenth-century origin, with a fourteenth-century chancel, nave and west tower and a fifteenth-century north aisle and chapel. The four-stage west tower is of coursed rubble and flint with flushwork dedication crosses and a chequered plinth, angle buttresses and a north-east octagonal stair turret. Nave and chancel have pegtiled roofs; the nave parapet is embattled. The south porch, of oak on red-brick ground walls with Doric columns, dates from about 1680. The tower arch, five-bay north arcade and chancel arch, with four-lobe mouldings, are dated about 1362–71.
Fittings include a fifteenth-century octagonal font with blank arcading and a mid-seventeenth-century octagonal pulpit with sounding board. Sabine Baring-Gould, author of the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, was rector here from 1871 to 1881.