← Database

St Michael

Berechurch

Essex

DATES OF MAIN PHASES/ NAMES OF ARCHITECTS: C14 and later phases

Architectural Features

The W window is late C14, as is the W door.

The bell chamber E and N windows are of c.1500, those to S

W are C14 reset.

The nave has a rest C14 S door, covered by a C19 porch.

The chancel E window has an acutely pointed head and Perpendicular tracery and dates to the early C17.

It has a large early C16 E window of three lights with brick tracery.

In the W wall there is a C16 brick doorway with continuous mouldings and a hood mould.

The N (Audley) chapel has a very fine C16 hammerbeam roof, heavily carved.

The carving includes the emblems of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, thus dating it to 1509-33.

In the early C17, heraldic badges with the arms of Audley of Walden were added to the ends of the hammerbeams.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The Audley chapel contains a very fine set of monuments, the most notable of which is a very large monument to Sir Henry Audley, erected in1648 during his lifetime.

A life sized white marble effigy in armour, reclining on a black and white chest with figures of his five children.

Later memorials in the church include one to Charlotte White of Berechurch Hall by Joseph Edwards and another to her grandfather Sir Robert Smyth, d. 1802, an urn within a classical frame.

Also Nicholas Tomlinson d. 1847 and wife Elizabeth d. 1839, an elaborate Gothic frame by J Browne, and two monuments by George Lufkin of Colchester.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Some monuments remain in the courtyard, including a chest tomb for the Ward and Tomlinson families that commemorates, among others, James Ward d. 1806 who sailed with Captain Cook and is said to have been the first to see the Hawaiian Islands, and his brother-in-law Vice-Admiral Nicolas Tomlinson d. 1847.

HISTORY: The church probably has C11 or earlier origins, but was always a chapel of Holy Trinity, Colchester.

The tower is C14 and there are some reset C14 windows, probably from a reworking at that date of an earlier church.

The N (Audley) chapel was added in the early C16, perhaps in the late 1520s or early 1530s but certainly before 1533.

In 1536 Sir Thomas Audley was licensed to create a separate rectory at Berechurch, and it may be he who was responsible for the construction of the N chapel a few years earlier.

There was further work in the early C17, when heraldic cartouches with the arms of Audley of Walden were added to the chapel roof and the chancel E window was redone.

The manor house was damaged during the Civil War and repairs to the church may have been carried out in the late 1640s at the same time that Sir Henry Audley erected his own monument.

SOURCES VCH Essex IX , 408-18 Buildings of England: Essex 133-4 RCHME Essex III , 46 REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The church of St Michael, Colchester is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * Medieval church with C14 tower, C14 windows

C16 chapel, heavily restored in the C19. * Very fine early C16 memorial chapel for the Audley family, with an outstanding C16 hammerbeam roof

many very good monuments. * Interesting C17 Gothic Survival chancel E window. * Interior of nave and chancel have been converted to office use but retain some good C19 monuments.