The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Peter and St Thomas of Canterbury (now)
Parish church
Stambourne is a village in the Braintree district of north Essex, 5 miles SE of Haverhill. The village is dispersed along minor roads around the headwaters of the River Colne, and the church stands on one of these with Stambourne Hall beyond it. The oldest part of the church is the massive 11thc W tower, of flint and pebble rubble with long and short work and reused tiles on the angles, and plain 2-order brick windows, to which tracery was added c.1300. The nave and chancel are mortar rendered and partly of the 11th-12thc. The S nave doorway is of c.1300 and is protected by a later medieval brick porch, and a N aisle was also added in the 16thc. Chancel and chancel arch are 15thc, and the 16thc N chapel now contains the organ. The wooden choirscreen has paintings of saints at the lower level. The tower was restored 1998-99. The only Romanesque feature described here is the W tower arch.