Photographs of The Church of St Michael, Woodham Walter

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The Church of St Michael at Woodham Walter, near Malden, is believed to be the first consecrated after the Elizabethan Settlement in 1559. Thomas Radclyffe (or Ratclyffe) 3rd Earl of Sussex, obtained a licence from Elizabeth I on 26 June 1562 to build a new church and it was consecrated on 30 April 1564. It is probably the oldest purpose built Church of England Church and one of only six built in England during Elizabeth's reign.
It is built of red-brick with crow-stepped gables and straight-headed windows with stone dressings. The wooden belfry has three bells and is crowned with a small spire. It has a nave, north aisle and chancel. The oak entrance door and the stone font come from the earlier medieval church and some of the windows contain some fragments of the stained glass which decorated the east window of the original church.