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EFC Centre at Wat Tyler Country ParkOur centre is available for visits on a pre-booked basis on Wednesdays between 10am - 4pm. The Club’s activities and displays are also usually open to the public on the first Saturday of the month 11am - 4pm.

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About the Essex Field Club
Essex Field Club
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Geology Site Account

A-Z Geological Site Index

St Marys Church, Great Bentley, GREAT BENTLEY, Tendring District, TM10902162, General geological site

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Site category: Building or wall

Summary

Building of interest for the stonework, which is of local origin.

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Site description

The parish church of Great Bentley stands on the west side of the largest village green in Essex. The church is unusual as it is largely constructed of ferricrete, an iron-cemented gravel that was quarried locally. This stone, which makes a remarkably durable building material, was formed within local Ice Age gravels as an iron pan, which can be up to a metre in thickness, at the level of the groundwater table. The occurrence of ferricrete beneath the ground in this area is noted in the Victorian geological survey memoir for the Colchester district (published in 1880) which states: œNear Little Bentley, Great Bentley, and Wivenhoe Cross, the gravel is cemented by iron into a coherent mass, overlying loose material.€

In the church walls the blocks of ferricrete are laid in an attractive pattern. The nave is thought to date from about 1130 and the tower late fourteenth century. Ferricrete is one of the few building stones native to Essex.

The church walls also contain some fine cobbles of attractive metamorphic and igneous rocks which may have originated locally from the Thames gravels (Wivenhoe Gravel).



St.Marys Church, Great Bentley is built mostly from ferricrete, one of the few building stones native to Essex. Photo © G. Lucy.

 

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Reference: Dalton 1880 (p.3), Potter 1987 (p.167-168), Potter 2005.

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