Churches. St.Mary, Mundon

Yesterday St.Mary's church at Mundon went through on F/B from Friend's of Friendless Churches which had finished its restoration on the foundations. I notice below on an earlier blog that it was built in the moat of an old manor house.  It was a strange church with its Tudor apse sided entrance.  Well I am only mentioning it because a fascinating fact fell out as well.  This was because apparently 'The War of the Worlds' by H.G.Wells had part of the BBC film taken here.  Of course it was the eerie dead 1000 year old (from salt) oak trees.  I notice that Steven Spielberg also made a film of this story, but it looks like it was made in America, which the usual American 'touch' of sheer panic.  The BBC adaptation was much nearer the story that Wells had written.

"This was the second place we visited yesterday, the little village of Mundon lies just outside Maldon, and I had espied this church a few months back on my map, isolated and lying low in the landscape it intrigued me. Deserted medieval village was my first thought, and probably near to the mark, as the settlement was deserted due to the plague. This is a Tudor church, built on the foundations of a Norman church, and probably Saxon beginnings given its proximity to water and it being on the St.Peter's Way pilgrimage route to St.Peter's church on the Dengie Marsh.

It will be some while before I gather my thoughts on this church, it is redundant and derelict but has been taken under the wing by Friends of Friendless Churches, yes such an organisation does exist.

The church itself was built in the moat of the old manor there, and because it was set on marshy ground, great cracks started to appear and I think it was roofless by the 18th century. It was due for demolition in the 1970s but then rescued to a point, there is still plenty of work to carried out. It is totally unusual having an apsidal entrance of timber posts and plaster to the west front entrance. The grave yard is very neglected, and the church sits next to a large farmhouse (probably the site of the old manor). The wooden south porch is also rotting to pieces though there is some fine carvings.

Paul was very taken with the place, and yet I had a feeling of unease, you can't go into the church (too dangerous), but perhaps the white skeletons of dead trees in a field towards the estuary helped give me the impression of an unhealthy place, that and of course an imagination that tends to run rife. The fields in which these enormous oak trees stood was grazed by alpacas to add to the unreal effect the place had on me. Actually the trees are relict petrified oaks, and were recorded in the Domesday book. "