Overlooking the A127 with views spanning from Essex to London, the Grade II-listed All Saints Church has stood semi-abandoned for decades until 2021 when an army of volunteers set about transforming the area to make it more visitor friendly.

The current building isn’t the first church to be built on that spot, in fact it’s possibly the second or third.

When Sir Thomas Tyrell III was granted the advowson of East Horndon by King Henry VI in 1442, he took the opportunity to demolish the old building and rebuild it in brick, not from stone. In his will dated 1476, he asked for ‘a tomb of timber or of stone for me and my wife’ and was provided with a tomb with brasses showing Sir Thomas and his wife Anne, shields and an inscription. This was repeatedly damaged over the centuries with the last remaining brasses stolen in the 1970’s.

In 1562 a rector who was to prove the most extraordinary incumbent in the history of the church was presented to the living of All Saints. Years later, on the fly leaf of the parish register, he inscribed the following laconic note ‘Robert Hunter, once a baker, then a rector’. How this unusual transition was effected may never be known. Throughout his 46-year incumbency he was continuously at loggerheads with his parishioners, the ecclesiastical authorities, the lord of the manor and the Common Law.

Graffiti on the outside of the church dates back to as far as the late 1800’s when the building started to become neglected.

From the Second World War onwards the church started to deteriorate. During World War II a bomb exploded close to the church, destroying much of the glass and weakening the building. Little was done to repair the church and following this was subjected to an arson attack and multiple burglaries with lead stolen from coffins and even the church bells were stolen. With roof tiles stolen and windows smashed, the church was close to falling apart until in 1970 the ‘Save the All Saints Campaign’ was launched with around 200 supporters. The church had been declared redundant on 13th November 1970 and was to be used as a cultural and community centre.

As the years went on the area started to return to an anti-social hotspot with the church grounds becoming neglected. An illegal rave was held on New Year’s Eve 2020, during a Coronavirus lockdown, with further damage caused to the building so a mammoth clean-up operation was started by a group of volunteers. There was so much waste around the grounds that a specialist bio team were called in to remove contaminated waste including needles and over 1,000 used condoms. Since then specialist CCTV has been installed and overgrowing weeds have been trimmed back, revealing 290 graves, some visible for the first time in years.