The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Gregory or St George (medieval)
Parish church
Pentlow is a small village in the Braintree district of north Essex, on the S side of the River Stour that forms the Suffolk border. The closest major town is Sudbury, 4 miles to the SE. The modern village centre is a mile to the S of the hall and the church, which form a group close to the river and effectively hidden from the road.
The church is of flint and pebble rubble with ashlar dressings. It consists of a 12thc nave with a 19thc S porch of brick and knapped flint; an apsidal chancel, and a round W tower and a N chancel chapel that were added in the 14thc. The chapel was remodelled c.1600 when it became the Kempe chapel, housing three imposing effigies. Pentlow is one of only six round-towered churches in Essex. Romanesque features are the font, the nave W doorway, now inside the later tower and decorated with an animal head at the apex, and a base re-used as building material at the SW angle of the nave.