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papageno wrote: Ah thanks. Looks interesting, but a bit far for me to cycle from here.
The Beauchamp stone and church are a fair bit off the main road, with a dirt road leading to the church and a dead end. Feels like the church location was not chosen for accessability, but perhaps because of the stone, or that the site had some significance.
We went today, and it is a very tranquil setting for a church. Following the course of the brook through the fields and the first thing you notice is that the church is set on the highest part of the ridge, surrounded by a ditch on all sides. Information on the web says it is of 'considerable antiquity'. The church is pure Norman, no roman materials or stones are part of the building.. Given that the Saxon Greensted church is only a few miles away, it might have been a similar Saxon settlement, and there is also a barrow just outside Chipping Ongar according to my map.
The stone is odd, sharply angled but it has traces of puddlestone, it sits at right angles to the church, maybe it was part of the Puddingstone Track, but there is no evidence of a track now. Two large badger holts on either side of the churchyard under old yews and rabbit burrows galore, probably shows that the mound of earth on which the church sits is pretty porous...
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