The Church in Seaton Ross is a brick construction with stone details. It was built in 1788, to replace an earlier church, and it is dedicated to St Edmund. St Edmund, a King of East Anglia, was martyred in the 9th century for refusing to renounce Christ after an attack by the Danes. His death is depicted in the Preston memorial window in the church. The martyred body of St Edmund was interred at Bury, St.Edmund.

The congregation originally sat in box pews under a plaster ceiling with an ornamented cornice with a Minstrels Gallery at the west end. The original Norman font is in use today as are the eighteenth century pulpit and communion rail. In 1901 Temple Moore, undertook the restoration of the church, which cost £600. He bricked up the lower part of the nave windows and put a new one in the chancel. The gallery was taken down and the panelling of the box pews was used to make the dado and reading desk and new pews were installed. A reredos with curtains either side was erected in front of the east window.

In 1953 George Pace reorganised the chancel by removing Temple Moore’s reredos and a window, designed by Harry Stammers, was inserted in the unblocked east window.

A sundial, signed “William Watson, 1825” is positioned over the entrance to the church.

We know details of the building work and renovations carried out due to items located in the church:

Stone table on the Tower:

“H. Nottingham raised the steeple at his charge from this stone,1788”.

Memorandum on a board in the Church which displays the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer:

“This Church was rebuilt at the Expense of the Parishioners of Seaton Ross, and the Chancel by William Haggerston Maxwell Constable Esq: The same was furnished with a new pulpit and Reading Desk, and properly ornamented by the Minister of the said Parish in the year of our Lord 1789”.

Malcolm Young