A MALDON district church once abandoned because of a plague has received a £40,000 grant for renovation in the midst of a modern pandemic.

Essential work will now be carried out on restoring and protecting the future of the beautiful 14th Century St Mary's Church in Mundon.

The church, approached by a dirt track road and set among fields, was closed by the Church of England in 1970 and leased for 999 years to the Friends of Friendless Churches charity in 1975. The charity has been able to stabilise and improve the building to a point, but cracks are obvious from the moment of entry into the interior of the amazing little church.

The History Behind St Mary's Church, Mundon

The history of St Mary's, standing on ground which is thought to date back as a place of worship to Anglo-Saxon times, is one that has seen the population the church was built to serve shift away. This is thought to have been the case following the plague of 1665 in the Dengie area, blamed at the time on the surrounding marshland.

Before that happened, back in Tudor times, the distinctive tower and skirt at the entrance was added, with the unmistakably Tudor beaming adding a particular charm. Inside, there are a number of stencils and texts painted on the rendered walls.

The church continued to be used over the centuries, despite the remoteness of the church from any village, with some Georgian and Victorian changes and decoration to the building.

However, when rural life changed in the first part of the last century, people became less willing to make the journey to the church and the very last burials there took place in the 1950s as the church fell into a near-derelict state.

It was only the intervention of the Friends of St Mary's, whose work was later taken over by the Friends of Friendless Churches, that this heritage treasure survives as it does today.

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While some of the wooden box pews are currently broken and unusable, the tradition in recent years has been for the Rector of St Mary's Church in Maldon to hold an annual service at the church in September in honour of St Mary the Virgin.

The £40,000 grant goes to the Friends of Friendless Churches charity from the Government's Culture Recovery Fund for heritage – and a further £40,00 will go to Maldon District Council to support other heritage organisations and projects. The grants were announced yesterday (Friday, 9 October).

Maldon MP John Whittingdale said: "We are very lucky to have wonderful heritage assets in the district and this money will help us get through the current challenges and emerge stronger."