Memories of Greensted by Essex Writers

Marcus Crouch, in his book ‘ Essex’ (1969) wrote, “Greensted has always held a specially firm grip in my heart. As a boy living across the border in a northern suburb of London I had heard about Greensted, the only wooden church in England to have survived from the Saxons, and longed to see it for myself. For an impoverished small boy, Greensted, 20 miles away, seemed as inaccessible as Greenland. I hugged the thought of this place to myself for years. At last – I suppose I was 13 or 14 – I could bear it no longer, and so I walked to Greensted to make my personal pilgrimage to this infinitely ancient shrine. As pilgrims should, I suffered, from thirst and extreme fatigue: but I got to Greensted and returned home again. Was it worth the 40-mile tramp? I believe so. I have been to Greensted many times since, in comfort, and have never failed to recapture the memory of dust and hot tar on gritty lanes and the lifting of the heart which I felt at the fulfilment of my pilgrimage”.

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Clifford Bax, the brother of composer Arnold Bax, wrote ‘Highways and Byways in Essex’ just as the Second World War broke. “It is however, when we come to Greensted-juxta-Ongar, to go to its amazing little Saxon church that we look upon the great jewel of the district. I went there, as you should, on a fine afternoon of July, with friends and a hamper of dainties, for when you have explored the church you mat pleasantly picnic in a vast field very close to it. Greensted is not easy to find, so far is it tucked away among fields and trees, but when you arrive you will see a genuinely early Saxon church. ... Here – at Greensted – a man must be in a sad condition if he cannot be happy and at peace for the length of a summer day”.²¹²

²¹¹ Crouch, Marcus. ‘Essex’ (B.T. Batsford, London, 1969) p.91

²¹² Bax, Clifford. ‘Highways and Byways in Essex’ (Macmillan & Co., London, 1939) p.315