Blackchapel, North End (1)

Image: © Stefan Czapski Taken: 14 Aug 2015

This little building - with its priest's house attached at the west end - stands by itself, well apart from any other habitation. The view here is from the east - my eye being attracted to the jumble of roof heights. Pevsner (in the Essex volume of 'The Buildings of England') has this to say: 'The rare case of a surviving entirely timber-framed ecclesiastical building, and also the rare case of a medieval chapel with attached priest's house'. - To which I would add that from outside it isn't obvious that this is a timber building, though the timber frame is clearly visible once you peep through the windows. Inside there are traces of medieval wall paintings, but outside it is the 'Gothick' windows, neat plaster-work and cottagey barge-boards (under the eaves) that catch the eye. The Gothick features date from the Gothic Revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries - and it seems to me that features of that period set the tone. It takes some effort to imagine the building as it may have looked 500 years ago. I suspect the timber structure was then less well concealed. You have to imagine away the present-day primness and think, say, of Thaxted: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3546183

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0