2-791-565 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Thaxted Church Spire, 1844. View of Thaxted Parish Church which dates from 1340. 'One of the points selected for the purposes of the Trigonometrical Survey of England, now in active progress, under the superintendence of the officers of the Royal Engineers (Sappers and Miners), is the spire of Thaxted Church, near Epping, in Essex. The church is one of considerable beauty, of a late period of Gothic architecture...It consists of a nave, with a clerestory, aisles, chancel, transept (north and south), porches, and a tower surmounted by an elegant spire, nearly 200 feet high. Around the spire is erected the scaffolding supporting the platform for the purposes of the survey, presenting a singular aspect. The construction is firm and ingenious - every advantage being taken of the conditions of the spire'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.