St Mary the Virgin Church, Corringham

St Mary the Virgin Church is a Church of England parish church in the town of Corringham, Essex, England. Dating from the 11th century, it is a Grade I listed building.^[1]

The church has a west tower with a pyramidal roof, a nave and north aisle, and a chancel with a north chapel. It is built of ragstone rubble and flint, with dressings of Reigate stone and limestone.

Domesday Book of 1086 does not record a church or priest. At that time, landholders in the area included the bishop of London, and bishop Odo of Bayeux.^[2]

The tower is from the late 11th century, as evidenced by the bell-openings and blind arcading, and inside, the arch with a single order of decoration on each side. Nikolaus Pevsner calls it "one of the most important Early Norman monuments in the county".^[3] At the apex of the arch on the east side is a small carving of a human head.^[3] The RCME considered the south walls of the chancel and nave to be from earlier in the 11th century, perhaps pre-Conquest, with the tower standing on the foundations of the earlier west wall of the nave.^[4]

The north chapel and north aisle were added in the 14th century, and in the same century the chancel was extended eastward and made higher.^[3] 19th-century restoration included work in 1843 by George Gilbert Scott, and the south porch and the vestry are also from that century.^[1]

The three bells are from 1580, 1629 and 1617.^[5]

Today the parish is part of the benefice of Corringham and Fobbing.^[6]