St Mary the Virgin Church is a

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

in the town of Corringham, Essex, England. Dating from the 11th century, it is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

building. The church has a west tower with a pyramidal roof, a nave and north aisle, and a chancel with a north chapel. It is built of

ragstone Rag-stone is a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones that are quarried in thin pieces, such as Horsham Stone, sandstone, Yorkshire stone, and the slate stones, but this is more properly flag or slab work. Near Londo ...

rubble and flint, with dressings of Reigate stone and limestone.

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 does not record a church or priest. At that time, landholders in the area included the bishop of London, and bishop

Odo of Bayeux Odo of Bayeux (died 1097) was a Norman nobleman who was a bishop of Bayeux in Normandy and was made Earl of Kent in England following the Norman Conquest. He was the maternal half-brother of duke, and later king, William the Conqueror, and w ...

St Mary The Virgin Corringham Bishop Odo

The tower is from the late 11th century, as evidenced by the bell-openings and blind arcading, and inside, the arch with a single

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

of decoration on each side.

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

calls it "one of the most important Early Norman monuments in the county". At the apex of the arch on the east side is a small carving of a human head. The RCME considered the south walls of the chancel and nave to be from earlier in the 11th century, perhaps pre-Conquest, with the tower standing on the foundations of the earlier west wall of the nave. The north chapel and north aisle were added in the 14th century, and in the same century the chancel was extended eastward and made higher. 19th-century restoration included work in 1843 by

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...

, and the south porch and the vestry are also from that century. The three bells are from 1580, 1629 and 1617. Today the parish is part of the benefice of Corringham and Fobbing.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Corringham, Saint Mary Grade I listed churches in Essex Churches in Thurrock