Essex lacks a natural source of stone suitable for dressing the windows, doorways and corners of buildings. Relying on local materials, the Late Saxon [?] builders of St Peter's Church solved this problem by reusing Roman bricks which might have been salvaged from the ruins of one of the Roman villas that once stood in this region of the Colne estuary.  The distinctive Roman thin red bricks can be seen here forming the quoins (corner dressings) at the original south-west angle of the church.