The church of All Saints and St Faith's is an attractive little building standing on a hill on the north side of the A127 trunk road and overlooking an adjoining lake.
There was a priest at Childerditch in 1232. In 1251 Robert and Margery Hovel granted the advowson of the church and their estate to Coggeshall Abbey. It was later incorporated into the title of the manor of Childerditch and was acquired by Lord Petre in the late 18th century. As the Petres were Roman Catholic it was their agent who presented the next vicar in 1805. The parish is currently twinned with Great Warley.
The first reference to the building was in 1387-88 when Coggeshall abbey paid a tiler for the new chancel building. As the chancel is recorded as having been made of brick and as tilers (in those days) did bricklaying we can assume that he built the chancel and not merely roofed it.
In 1858 this church was described as a small building with a flint rubble nave, brick chancel 'of recent date', a timber belfry and a south porch. The church was ruinous but the building's fate was not sealed until 1869 when the old building was completely demolished and replaced by the present one.
This was designed by D. Cubitt Nichol and F. Johnstone of London. These architects had previously worked for Lord Petre and it is probable that - despite his Catholicism - he had some influence over the building's fate. It was built in Kentish ragstone to an Early English style with nave, chancel, south porch and west bellcot.
No monuments survive from the earlier church but the bell is probably 17th century while the font is early 16th century with a black letter inscription recording it was given by John Throsscher (Thresher) and his wife.
The cache has a log book but no pen.
PLEASE REPLACE THE LOGBOOK IN THE ZIPLOCK BAG AS THIS KEEPS IT DRY !!
If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication
To view the church micro stats page, please click here