St. Mary's Church Southend-on-Sea

For more than a thousand years there has been a church on the site of Saint Mary’s, Prittlewell. When the Saxons settled here, soon after the Roman Legions had left Britain, they found a fine, dry site overlooking the river Thames, with a fresh water stream – the Prittle Brook – and good grazing land nearby.

Over the centuries, the church at Prittlewell has seen joyous times, and has fallen on hard times. Shortly after Henry VIII’s reign, at the time of the Reformation, so much of the church’s income and assets were seized that the churchwardens sold the church plate to ‘pay for maintenance of the church’. In the Second World War, Saint Mary’s suffered blast damage from bombs falling nearby, but daily services continued at the normal times throughout those difficult years. It is said that the Vicar at that time – Canon Ellis Gowing – had the valuable 16th century stained glass window removed from the Jesus Chapel and buried in the cellar of the old vicarage.