St Mary the Virgin, Maldon

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church on Church Street at the Hythe in Maldon, Essex, in the Diocese of Chelmsford, long known locally as the Fisherman’s Church.

Overview

Historic England lists a parish church of twelfth-century origin, with a fourteenth-century west tower and north porch, a brick top stage to the tower of 1636, an early nineteenth-century rebuilt chancel, and a south aisle, organ chamber and general restoration of 1885 by Frederick Chancellor, Diocesan Surveyor. The fabric is rubble flint and septaria with ashlar dressings, red brick to the tower top and chancel, and plain tiled roofs. The plan is a west tower, nave with north porch, four-bay south aisle and single-bay chancel.

The massive tower is as wide as the nave, with a worn fourteenth-century west door, reused billet moulding, an embattled brick bell stage and a timber-boarded polygonal lantern with a shingled spire. The unbuttressed north nave wall retains a twelfth-century round-headed slit window. Inside, the south arcade has double-chamfered arches on cylindrical piers; the springing of a tall twelfth-century chancel arch was rebuilt in 1885. Roofs date from that restoration. Fittings include a seventeenth-century pulpit and early eighteenth-century altar rails with twisted balusters. The parish website describes the building as the oldest in Maldon and a landmark on the Blackwater.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1257075
• St Mary’s, Maldon