Tilbury-juxta-Clare
Historical overview of St. Margaret’s Church Tilbury-juxta-Clare taken, with kind permission, from A Select Guide to Essex Churches And Chapels by members of the Friends of Essex Churches. Edited by John Fitch.
St. Margaret’s Church, Tilbury-juxta-Clare
“Exceedingly picturesque in its rustic setting in the fields, away from the tiny village, but near Tilbury Hall, this remote church is best seen just before harvest.
Its sylvan churchyard is faithfully delineated in Francesca Greenoak and Clare Roberts’ delightful God’s Acre: the Flowers and Animals of the Parish Churchyard (Orbis, 1985). Its diapered Tudor brick tower was the gift of Elizabeth, countess of Oxford (of Castle Hedingham) in 1519.
The church itself, nave, chancel and south porch, is earlier than seems to be suggested by its Perpendicular windows. Not only is there a strange plaster dragon (?) above the west window in the tower, and an Elizabethan pulpit, but there are also several faded wall paintings in the nave, the most interesting of which, on the north wall, shows ‘a Tudor man with white horse in front of a house with contemporary brick nogging’ (Scarfe). The stencilling round the chancel arch is Victorian as are the bits of carved stone stuck into the outside chancel walls.”