All Saints Church Vange is on the southern
side of London Road, close to the Brickfield Road junction and backing
onto the Stanford-le-Hope bypass at the south edge of the Basildon
district. It is thought to have originated about 1328, making it the
oldest surviving church in the district. The interior, once lit by
oil lamps, was wired for electricity in 1931 which also provided
heating. By 1994, now far from the more heavily-inhabited areas,
the church was closed.
The church is a small Perpendicular building of
stone and rubble. It consists of chancel and nave, south porch, and
a small wooden bell turret on the western gable containing one bell.
The east window contains stained glass, while another remembers a
former rector, the Reverend Wright. A three-year maintenance and
restoration programme began in 2004. The roof, exterior woodwork,
and interior all had work carried out to ensure the building's
continued survival.
Vange Mission Bell Hill is on the west
side of Bells Hill Road, close to its south exit. It is an original
Victorian 'tin tabernacle' which was erected on 13 October 1886 to
act as a free church for the scattered local population. It
continues its role today as an undenominational Christian fellowship
church. Briefly post-war, it seems, to the north there was also a
Bells Hill Road Chapel at the Hawkesbury Bush Lane corner.
Today no trace remains and no record of it can be located.
Dry Street Memorial Church (Interdenominational)
is on the east side of One Tree Hill, roughly seventy metres south
of the Dry Street junction. It opened in 1931 with its congregation
in the Dry Street area previously having held meetings at Dry Street
Farm (no more than three hundred metres east of the chapel), the
first of which took place in 1834. Organised on a Methodist basis,
the meeting had become undenominational by the time the chapel was
built.
St Mary & All Saints (Old Church) is
on the northern side of Old Church Hill in Langdon Hills, a little
under a kilometre west of the B1007 High Road. It was built in the
1500s, some time after the craze for large stone towers had gone out
of fashion. It seems to have replaced an earlier building, as a
'Langedon' church was attested in 1209. Atypically for a Norman
church, the local lack of stone and excess of timber may have meant
that it was largely a timber construction.
The church is claimed as having been built
on the foundations of the old one, and was enlargened in 1834.
But a new St Mary's Church to serve the parish was built in
1877-1878 (see links). This church, now excess to requirements,
was formally closed in or around 1973, although it seems already
have been empty for some time, in a gradually deteriorating
condition. It was sold a few years later and is now a private
home. Access to the large graveyard remains unrestricted.
Five photos on this page by P L Kessler (from
2011), and one kindly contributed by Hannah Fry (from 2009).
Additional information from Kelly's Directory of Essex
(1902), and Church of S Mary and All Saints, Langdon Hills,
Rev C E Livesey BA, rector of Langdon Hills (1931).
