Winter Walks in Essex – St. Peter’s Chapel, Bradwell

On a sunny day in September 2014 we visited St. Mary’s Church in Mundon. The church is redundant, and is now in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. Once a year a service is held there. It was built on St. Peter’s Way, an ancient pilgrim’s route to St. Peter’s Chapel at Bradwell.

St. Peter’s Chapel was built over 1300 years ago, out of stone from a previous Roman fort, by Cedd, a priest who had been ordained at Lindisfarne, and landed at Bradwell to spread the word of Christianity. The chapel is tucked away on the Bradwell peninsula, and was one of our top targets to visit.

There’s a six-mile circular walk on the the AA website, although you can head to the chapel from the car park and back and not take quite so long, and also doesn’t go quite so close to the nuclear power station!

One of the blogs we follow is ‘toomanyphotos’ by Hannah Salisbury, who takes a lot of photos of historic buildings in Essex and nearby counties, when she’s not doing some amazing work in the day job at the Essex Record Office, like the ‘Now the Last Poppy has Fallen’ which enthralled us at Hylands House last year. That day out was part of our 30th wedding anniversary weekend treat – how nerdy are we??

Yesterday Hannah posted a photo-essay about her weekend walk to St. Peter’s Chapel, and has kindly allowed us to user her photographs in this article, which do justice to an amazing building. Go to her blog for larger photographs, and to see the other places she has visited.