In 1548 Greensted church was united to that of Cheping Ongar, by act of parliament, for the alleged reasons that ‘the profits of the church of Cheping Ongar were not sufficient to find a priest, being not above six pounds in the king’s book, and because the charges of the repairs, ornaments, and other accustomed duties to that church, and the church of Grinstead, (which was of the same value or little more, and stood but a quarter of a mile distant from it, and commodious for the access of the parishioners of Ongar), were much greater than could be raised or borne among such poor parishioners; it was therefore enacted, that the church of Cheping Ongar should be dissolved, and that the church of Grinsted made the parish church, as well for the parishioners of Ongar as those of Grinsted; and the advowson of Ongar was therefore invested in the patron of Grinsted, viz. the lord Rich, his heirs and assigns.’
But this union was dissolved by another act, passed in 1554, in the preamble of which it is said, that one William Moris, esq., then patron of the church of Cheping Ongar, and member of parliament, did by sinister labour and procurement, get the act for the consolidation.