Visit-a-Church
Key Image St Andrew
Church Lane
CM5 9LD Ongar (Greensted-juxta-Ongar)
United Kingdom
Denomination: Anglican
Congregation: Greensted-juxta-Ongar (Diocese of Chelmsford, Archdeaconry of Harlow, Epping Forest and Ongar)
Geogr. Coordinates: 51.70444° N, 0.22551° E
Geo Location
Reference year: 1060
Building type: Stave Church
Description: Oldest wooden church in the world and oldest wooden building in Europe, model for the Norwegian stave churches, single-nave church with west tower
Name derivation: From St Andrew (suggesting a Celtic origin); also called “Greensted Church” (from Saxon stede = clearing, place)
Building material
  • Side walls of the nave and western gable wall, c. 1060: plano-convex oak logs, c. 20–40 cm wide, with key and slot joints; inner side smoothed with adzes, outer sides naturally rounded; open roof as found in Norwegian stave churches
Bells
  • One of the bells inscribed “William Land made me 1618”
Outside facilities
  • Crusader’s grave of non-local stone near the porch (12th cent.)
Noteworthy
  • Small window in a niche on the north wall
Pulpit
  • Donated in 1698 by Alexander Cleeve, who had recently acquired Greensted Hall
Font
  • Wooden font, built of oak using a hand adze (Hugh Casson, 1987)
Windows
  • Quatrefoil window at the west end with a fragment of 15th cent. glass
  • Stained glass windows by Nathaniel Westlake (added in 1848 or shortly thereafter)
Noteworthy
  • Victorian roof beams with motifs from the St Edmund’s legend
History:
About 600:   Remains of two wooden predecessor buildings, which probably served some Celtic missionaries
About 1060:   Construction of the mostly window-less nave (stave wall construction: wooden palisade sitting directly in the soil) in late Saxon times
Late 11th cent.:   Remains of walls in flint construction and a piscina in the chancel from the Norman period
1099:   Construction of the stone chancel
About 1500:   Reconstruction of the chancel in brick, replacement of the thatched roof by a tiled roof with windows, addition of the porch and the portal
17th cent.:   Construction of the tower
20/06/1839:   Wedding of James Brine and Elizabeth Standfield (the “Tolpuddle Martyrs“, who had been punished hard for founding a trade union)
1848:   Restoration by James Barlow: the lower, rotten part of the staves was cut off and the wooden construction was placed on a brick plinth, the medieval plaster on the wooden walls was removed, the central staves of the west wall were moved to provide a wider access to the tower, the decorated roof beams were added, six new roof windows replaced the ones from Tudor times, and the porch was redesigned.
1990:   Stabilization of the roof by a steel construction
1995:   Dendrochronological examination of the church and redating of the year of construction to c. 1060/63
Important persons:
Monument:  Edmund (841–869/870, king of East Anglia, martyr)
Patron:  Andrew (?–60, apostle, bishop of Patras, martyr)
Dimensions:
Width [m]:  5.1
Length [m]:  8.85
Sources
Ahrens, Claus: Die frühen Holzkirchen Europas – Katalog, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 172–173
BBC Dorset: The Tolpuddle Martyrs, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2008/07/10/tolpuddle_story_feature.shtml, retrieved 08/09/2018
St. Andrews Church Greensted: Greensted Church Guidebook
© 2025
TuK Bassler
CC-BY-SA 4.0