St. Mary Magdalene Church, Essendine, Rutland.

Essendine is a small village on the main road between Stamford and Bourne. It has no pub or shop, however, it once had a castle, and this little church is located on the edge of what looks like a bit of wasteland but, it turns out was actually the castle moat! The castle was built in the late c12 or early c13. When it was demolished is unknown.

The church comprises a chancel and small aiseless nave. Substantially it is c12 but the chancel was rebuilt in c13 and some new windows were inserted. A lot of changes were made in c19 and the west wall was rebuilt. Externally, then, it looks like a quite run-of-the-mill small village church. It doesn’t even have the dignity of a tower. That Norman doorway shines like a diamond amongst dross and gives the clue that all is not as it seems. The door is believed to date from 1130-40, although a page from an antiquarian book posted on the wall of the church claims it as Saxon. The door jambs indeed have a Saxon look about them but this is not a Saxon church.

The British History website comments on there being a filled-in gap between the tympanum and the door arch and suggests that the tympanum is older and was brought from a church elsewhere or else that the whole doorway was reconstructed at some point.

The tympanum is Christ in Majesty supported by angels on either side. It is crude and engagingly naive and, again, is reminiscent of Saxon rather than Norman art. The decorations on the door posts and jambs are hard to discern now, and on the inside at least it is clear that there has been some re-ordering of the slabs which makes identification of specific themes and images nearly impossible.