Greensted Church

The Grade I listed building lies about a mile west of Chipping Ongar town centre.

[citation needed] Construction of the first permanent church on this site is thought to have begun shortly after Cedd began his conversion of the East Saxons around 654.

The archaeological remnants of two simple wooden buildings were discovered under the present chancel floor, and these are thought to have been built in the late 6th or early 7th century.

Some of the Tolpuddle Martyrs were granted farm tenancies in the Chipping Ongar area after they returned from transportation.

One of them, James Brine, married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Standfield, at Greensted church on 20 June 1839; the record of the marriage can be seen in the present register.

[10] In the chancel, the flint footings of the wall and the pillar piscina inside the sanctuary are all that is left of any Norman work.

A fragment of 15th-century glass can be seen in the centre of the quatrefoil window at the west end, but it was set there during the Victorian restoration.

St Andrew's Church from the south-west
A stained glass window depicting St Edmund
The north wall and part of the west wall of the nave; the notch, low down on the 7th trunk along from the corner, may either be a " leper's squint ", or an Anglo-Saxon window.
View of Greensted Church from the southeast corner. From here the different eras of construction and restoration are visible, the brickwork being newer.