Farnham

St Mary the Virgin was undergoing some serious work, I assume re-roofing, and was locked when I visited with not only no sign of a keyholder but no sign at all. The only reason I know it's called St Mary the Virgin is the interweb.

On the one hand I can understand why it is locked - this is the hardest to find church in the history of hard to find churches - but on the other that surely works in favour of keeping it open since, I suspect, only locals can find it with regularity, I'd certainly struggle to find it again!

Having found it I was slightly disappointed to find that it is a Victorian church built in 1859, however, this is more than made up for its location. I assume it is, or was, connected to the Hassobury estate since my sat nav was determined to take me through private roads to reach it - hence the trouble finding it since I'm not a drive along on private roads type.

UPDATE 13/09/14 - Gained access today...internally it's dire.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN, 1859 by Joseph Clarke.

It appears that Mee couldn't find it either.

Simon K:

One of the county's most remote churches, stuck in a fold of fields at the end of a narrow lane in that hook of Essex beyond the Hertfordshire town of Bishop's Stortford.

The church is alone in the fields, a grand sight on a rise above the Jacobean stately home of Hassiobury in the fold beneath. It was entirely rebuilt in the 1850s by John Clarke in a jaunty flint, with exposed beams, which cannot have been entirely approved of by the ecclesiologists. The steep roofs and exposed wood gave the effect of a gingerbread house, or at least of a church for a village of gingerbread houses.

It was tempting to ring the keyholder, but the church appears to have little of interest inside, and there was only a phone number, suggesting we'd have to wait for them to come and open up. I decided that the interior could not compete with the exterior, so instead we headed on through increasingly narrow and flooded winding lanes northwards to the pretty village of Manuden.