St Mary and St Peter (now)

Wennington

St Mary and St Peter, Wennington, Essex

Parish church

Wennington is a small village in the London Borough of Havering, a mile N of the Thames, from which it is separated by Wennington Marshes, and between Rainham and Aveley on the N side of the A13. The church stands in the centre of the village, on the S side of the village street. It consists of a 13thc chancel to which a modern S organ chamber has been added, an aisled nave with a N porch, and a W tower. Construction is of flint and rubble with ashlar dressings and decorative flushwork on the chancel E wall, the N nave aisle parapet and the buttresses. The oldest feature here is an 11th - 12thc doorway, but this is reset in the E wall of the organ chamber. Otherwise the chancel is basically 13thc, the S aisle was 13thc but was destroyed and rebuilt in 1885-86, along with the organ chamber, under the direction of the Rev. Ernest Geldart of Rainham, who also designed the N porch. The N aisle was added in the 14thc, and the tower appears early in origin but contains no features earlier than the 14thc. The only Romanesque feature here is the E organ chamber doorway.

Tidenham

St Mary and St Peter, Tidenham, Gloucestershire

Parish church

Tidenham is a village and parish in the Forest of Dean in W Gloucestershire. It adjoins the Welsh border at Monmouthshire and is E of Chepstow. The village is bounded by the river Wye to the W and the river Severn to the S. The church stands on the side of a hill and is mostly 13th to 14thc and was heavily restored in 1857-8 by John Norton. It comprises of a S doorway with a porch and a nave with a N aisle which has four bays of continuously double-chamfered arches. There is a W tower arch but no chancel arch. There is a N organ chamber and a vestry. The lower stages of the W tower have large clasping buttresses; the SW corner contains a stair turret with an external entrance. In the mid 18thc external parts of the church were whitewashed. It is said that this was to provide a marker for shipping in the Severn estuary. The church houses a lead font, one of six in Gloucestershire to be cast from the same mould.