One of Maldon district's most unique churches is set to have "urgent structural repairs" carried out in a bid to preserve it for future generations.

The charity looking after St Mary's Church in Vicarage Lane, Mundon, received a £40,000 grant from the Government's Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage in October last year.

At the time, a spokesperson for the charity - Friends of Friendless Churches - told Maldon Nub News that the cash would be used for structural repairs to the building and that they were working with Historic England to agree plans.

Plans have now been submitted to Maldon District Council for "urgent structural repairs to tower timbers, pews and their platforms, external section of south nave wall, as well as timber repairs to windows in nave and chancel".

Council planners will decide on whether to give the plans the go-ahead in due course.

History of St Mary's Church, Mundon

The history of the 14th Century church, 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.

While some of the wooden box pews are currently broken and unusable, the tradition until the pandemic 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.