IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
The Street, SUDBURY, CO10 8JN

Telephone box and postbox at Ashen, Essex. Postbox No.CO10 1029

The C13 church of St Augustine of Canterbury is visible in the distance

The wrought iron gate is a memorial to Frank Wade who was born in Ashen on 20th March 1887, married Eliza Margaret Martin and died on 2nd July 1965. The grave of Frank and Eliza is nearby in the churchyard. Opposite in The Street can be seen Ashen's Grade II listed K6 Image

The tower of the church was built in 1400 and added to the church that was originally built in the 13th century. It stands at the heart of the village.

This piece of ancient oak now hangs on the north wall of St Augustine's Church with the inscription: This hath bin the chvrch ing the mearring stoole and so it shall be still 1620 It was formerly attached to an old pew used for the service of Churching of Women, or thanksgiving after childbirth.

Ashen's village pub, opposite the church, is now a private residence called Bishops Hall. The building dates from the 15th century and is listed Grade II www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-114421-the-red-cow-public-house-ashen-essex#.Vy9AloSDGko . A red kite (the flying contraption, not the bird!) has become fouled in the branches of the tree to the left.

The south door retains some ironwork from the 14th century and is assembled with wooden pegs rather than metal nails. The locks were made in 1610 but overhauled in 2003.

The tower with its diagonal buttresses and battlements was added around 1400 to the small, aisleless church of 13th-century, Early English origin. The semioctagonal brick stair turret was built on around 1525. Frederic Chancellor, the diocesan architect, restored the tower in 1935. There are three bells: two of them cast in 1333 and among the oldest in the country, the third from the late 15th century. The Image is on the south-west buttress of the tower. St Augustine's is listed Grade I https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101123044-parish-church-of-st-augustine-of-canterbury-ashen

The names of the seven Ashen men who fell in the two World Wars are recorded on the SW buttress of the tower at St Augustine's Church. "The Great War 1914-1918, to the memory of our noble dead: Thomas Ince, Albert Peacock, Walter Swallow, Ernest Twitchett, James Twitchett. Their glory shall not be blotted out. Ecclesiasticus XLIV.13. "The World War 1939-1945: Ernest John Bowers, Percy Harold Peacock. Greater love hath no man than this. John XV.13."

In the niche on the stair turret of St Augustine's Church, the statue was carved in Portland stone by Malcolm Murduck in 2003.