St Laurence's Church is an

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

Blackmore Blackmore is a village in Essex, England. It is located approximately 3 miles (5 km) east of Chipping Ongar and 4 miles (7 km) north of Brentwood. The village is in the parish of Blackmore, Hook End and Wyatts Green in the Brentwood ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England. It is a former priory church, and is noted for its wooden bell tower. It is a Grade I

listed building 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 ...

The priory

Richard, Bishop of London from 1155 to 1162, gave authority for the foundation of Blackmore Priory, and the earliest parts of the building are of the late 12th century."Blackmore: Priory Church of St Laurence"
Blackmore Area Local History. Retrieved 21 December 2016. Via

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 ...

. The priory was dissolved in 1527, as part of Cardinal Wolsey's attempts to reform the church & divert some of its revenues to fund educational foundations. As such, this suppression was to form a model for the later Dissolution of the Monasteries, many smaller monasteries being closed in that year, mostly on the grounds of having insufficient numbers to fulfil their original religious obligations. John Smyth, auditor to the King, bought the site in 1540. The nave is that of the former priory; the building once extended further east, but this part was demolished in the 1540s."Blackmore Priory"
Blackmore Area Local History. Retrieved 9 February 2017. Via Wayback Machine.

History of the building

It is thought that the priory church originally had a high nave, with lower roofs over the aisles; in the late 14th century, one roof was erected over the nave and aisles. The

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

windows were built in the Tudor period, but it is not known if they predate the truncation of the church. Church of St Laurence Blackmore Essex England - Thomas and Margaret Smyth altar tomb

Church of St Laurence Blackmore Essex England - Thomas and Margaret Smyth altar tomb

The Smyth family were important in the village, through to 1721. In the south aisle there is an altar-tomb of Thomas Smyth (died 1594) and his wife Margaret. There are floor slabs in the chancel and nave, of the 17th and 18th centuries, of family members. From 1600 there have been no structural changes. The north porch is of the 19th century. There was restoration from 1895 to 1905 by Frederick Chancellor: the north arcade was rebuilt, and the east end of the north aisle was rebuilt.

The bell tower

Church of St Laurence Blackmore Essex England - timbered tower interior 01

There are many timber bell towers in this part of Essex. The construction of this tower is similar to that of the church at

Margaretting Margaretting is a village and civil parish in the Chelmsford district, in the county of Essex, England. The population of the village taken at the 2011 Census was 847. The village is located on the B1002 road approximately four miles from Chelmsfo ...

, and it is thought the same architect may have constructed both. Unusually, this tower is in three stages."Blackmore: The Bell Tower"
Blackmore Area Local History. Retrieved 1 December 2016. Via Wayback Machine. There are five bells in the tower, two of them cast by

Miles Graye Miles Graye was a dynasty of English bell-founders who had foundries in Colchester and Saffron Walden in Essex during the 17th-century. It is believed that the family cast over 415 bells, many of which remain today.Cecil Hewett, by means of

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

and with knowledge of medieval carpentry in Essex, dated the bell tower at Blackmore to about 1480. In 2004 Dr Martin Bridge, of the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, took samples of wood from the tower, so that the age could be determined by

dendrochronology Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...

. For three of them, the date of felling of the timber was found, the years being from 1397 to 1400. The conclusion was that the tower was built earlier than had been supposed: in 1400 or within the following two years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackmore, St Laurence's Church Grade I listed churches in Essex Church of England church buildings in Essex Churches in the Diocese of Chelmsford