St Eanswith's Church is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church in the village of

Brenzett Brenzett is a village and civil parish in the Folkestone and Hythe District of Kent, England. The village lies on the Romney Marsh, three miles (4.8 km) west of New Romney. The population of the civil parish includes the hamlet of Snave. ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, about north-east of

Rye, East Sussex is a small town and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England, two miles from the sea at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede. An important member of the mediaeval Cinque Ports confederatio ...

. A church was originally built on this site in the 7th century; the present building dates from the 12th century and has later modifications.

Saint Eanswith

The church is dedicated to Saint Eanswith; she was an Anglo-Saxon princess, a granddaughter of king

Æthelberht of Kent Æthelberht (; also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert; ang, Æðelberht ; 550 – 24 February 616) was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his ''Ecclesiastical History of the Engli ...

(who was converted to Christianity by

Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.Delaney '' ...

), and daughter of king

Eadbald of Kent Eadbald ( ang, Eadbald) was King of Kent from 616 until his death in 640. He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert. Æthelberht made Kent the dominant force in England during his reign ...

who reigned from 616 to 640.History of Brenzett
Kent Past. Retrieved 4 December 2017.St Eanswith, Brenzett
The Romney Marsh.net. Retrieved 4 December 2017. She was born about 630, and it is believed that she was the abbess of a nunnery at Folkestone.

Medieval church

left, 180px, Interior, looking east The oldest parts of the church, the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, date from the 12th century, when the original Saxon church was replaced. There were extensions in subsequent years: the north chapel and north aisle was built in the 13th century; the nave was extended to the west in the 14th century. A small spire, which has

wood shingle Wood shingles are thin, tapered pieces of wood primarily used to cover roof shingle, roofs and walls of buildings to protect them from the weather. Historically roof shingle, shingles, also known as shakes, were split from straight grained, kno ...

s, was built in the 14th century; to support it, a wooden frame was built, and buttresses built outside.

Later additions

There are three bells: a tenor bell of 1420, a treble by John Wilnar in 1630, and a middle bell by Thomas Palmar in 1699.St Eanswith
Love's Guide to the Church Bells of Kent. Version dated 15 January 2013 retrieved from

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

. Tomb chest of John Fagge (died 1639) and his son, in the north chapel There was some restoration of the church in the 19th century, and the east window by

Lavers, Barraud and Westlake Lavers, Barraud and Westlake were an English firm that produced stained glass windows from 1855 until 1921. They were part of the 19th-century Gothic Revival movement that had a significant influence on English civic, ecclesiastical and domestic ...

was installed in 1874. The chancel was largely rebuilt in 1902. In the north chapel is a monument to John Fagge, who died in 1639, and his son John, who died in 1646.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brenzett, St Eanswith's Church Grade II* listed churches in Kent Church of England church buildings in Kent Diocese of Canterbury